A Fiery Gospel
by Tetsuwan Penguin
Summary: Between Global Climate change caused by the release of CO2 from fossil fuels, Hydraulic Fracking causing earthquakes and fires, and GMO'ed crops contaminating the food supply, the world is quickly going to hell. Rock Holmes and Dr. Tenma have their own plans for saving the planet, and Atom and Reno find themselves caught up in the middle of it all. (A Novel Length Story)
1. Chapter 1

**A Fiery Gospel**

* * *

 _In every Astro story I've ever seen, our hero has been handcuffed by his morals (just as every superhero is). The great Isaac Asimov who created the three laws of robotics worked himself out of this dilemma in one of his last novels by creating a 'zeroth' law that allowed his robots to save humanity as a whole by seeing all of us collectively as more important than any one individual. But what would happen if Atom had this ability? And isn't this EXACTLY what Dr. Tenma (as in the 2003 Anime) had in mind in his vision for Atom?_

* * *

 _ **The Storm**_

 **It** began as a small mass of warm moisture that drifted off the top of a mountain on one of the many small islands in the Pacific. It drifted over a warm ocean current where it began to pick up additional energy and moisture. Encountering the outer bands of one of the trade winds over the middle of the ocean north of the equator, the cloud pattern took on a circular shape and winds began to wrap around a center. The clouds grew in size both outward and upwards and flashes of lightning discharged the considerable static electric charges that were now being produced by the increasing updrafts.

The surface rain and wind began to pick up as the storm grew in intensity. Its forward motion picked up speed as it steered on a north-west track. The disturbance grew stronger becoming a tropical cyclone, and it was named Nangka. It was not the first such storm of the season, nor would it be the last.

The typhoon quickly reached category 5 strength as it neared the south-eastern coast of Japan, seemingly aiming for a direct hit on the city of Miyazaki on the Japanese island of Kyushu. The city of over 350,000 people began to make preparations for the coming potential disaster. Already large waves were crashing on shore as the storm surge was being pushed ahead of the typhoon towards land.

The JMA and NOAA dispatched a joint Hurricane hunter mission into the storm to gain insight on its strength and future track. On board the WC-130J Hercules aircraft, the meteorologists endured the turbulence as the aircraft threaded its way between the spiral bands of clouds towards the eye wall of the storm. Normally carrying a crew of five, this mission included one extra person from the Japanese Ministry of Science who had brought along a new robotic weather probe. Now several hours out from the Misawa U.S. joint forces base, the hurricane hunter aircraft was nearing the outer periphery of Typhoon Nangka.

The Flight director glanced at the portly old man with the large nose and white hair. The frequently rapid changes in altitude that the plane was being subject to by the storm's up and down drafts didn't seem to phase him one bit as he adjusted the internal controls of the robotic dropsonde he had brought along with him on the flight.

"How are you doing back there Hakase?" the officer yelled behind him.

"I've almost got it ready!" the scientist yelled back. "We should be able to steer the sensor package anywhere in the storm we want, the power pack and fuel supply should be good for a few hours at least. How far are we from the drop zone?"

The navigator relayed their latest position to the pilots. "About five minutes to the first eye crossing," the first officer replied.

"Explain to me again about this new probe package," the Weather officer asked.

"Your standard dropsonde is held aloft by either a balloon or a parachute," the scientist explained. "It will drift about inside the storm at the whim of the winds. This robotic probe has an aerodynamic body and a built in jet engine powered by a hydrogen-peroxide power source. It can maneuver about the storm to collect data from different positions. Its computer brain is based on a kokoro enabled A.I., it can make decisions about where to go based on the data readings it's collecting without intervention from a human operator. We'll be able to get more accurate data, and in less time than by dropping multiple probes."

"We'll drop two of our standard instrument packages on the first crossing," the Systems Operator called back to the Japanese scientist, "once I have the initial telemetry readings you'll see them come up on your computer station. You can then determine on which heading you will want us to fly for the initial release of your robotic probe."

"Hai!" the old man agreed.

"Dropsonde point number one!" the pilot spoke into the intercom.

"Package away!" relayed the systems officer.

The Weather officer, Systems operator and the scientist observed the flood of telemetry data as it poured in over the down link. "Steer about ten degrees to your port side and climb up about 1000 feet," the scientist said. "I've got the probe loaded into the 'bomb-bay' now!"

"OK, executing!" the pilot replied.

Through the front windscreen the two pilots watched as flashes of lightning bounced from cloud to cloud. The yoke suddenly yanked itself from the pilot's hands as the plane responded to a massive wind shear causing it to drop several thousand feet in a matter of seconds before the two flight officers regained control.

"She's a mean one, this storm!" the first officer laughed.

"Let's try again to get to those drop coordinates," the pilot replied as he pulled back on the yoke and advanced the propeller controls.

The aircraft fought against the wind, as it bounced around for a few minutes. "I think I see some clear air ahead," the navigator relayed over the intercom.

"I see it on the scope," the pilot agreed, adjusting his course. "Should come up on your drop position in about thirty seconds, Hakase," he added.

The scientist watched on his computer tie in with the aircraft's navigation system, and he cross checked against the data readout the first two instrument packages were still feeding into the system. "Ten seconds to drop," the old man announced.

"Roger that," the systems operator replied.

"Robotic probe away!" the ministry scientist announced.

"I've got control of it." the systems operator announced, "your interface is working perfectly with our systems, data coming in now."

For about thirty seconds all seemed to be going well. Then suddenly a strong crosswind yanked the WC-130J into a spin.

"Where did that come from!" the first officer moaned as the two pilots fought to regain control.

"Looks like we're caught in a horizontal funnel cloud!" the weather officer announced, "It just came out of nowhere, I didn't see anything on the scope till it was upon us!"

The turbulence quickly grew worse as the aircraft alternately dived and and rolled.

"G forces are building, she can't take much more of this!" the pilot yelled. "Strap yourselves in, it's going to be a wild ride!"

A bolt of lightning hit the outboard port engine just as the aircraft was tossed into a roll. Three of the four huge bolts holding the engine mount to the wing sheared away as the engine caught fire.

"Activate number 1 extinguisher!" the first officer cried out reaching for the controls.

"It's getting too rough in here," the pilot decided, "I'm aborting the mission!" He brought up the throttles on the three remaining engines and slowly rolled the plane into a 270 degree turn to exit the storm. The aircraft was then caught in yet another blast of turbulence, and the winglet on the outer tip of the port wing snapped off.

The pilots struggled to keep the crippled aircraft flying, as it was now rapidly loosing altitude. They activated the automatic distress beacons, the first officer making mayday calls over the radio.

Suddenly a small two way microwave transceiver in the old scientist's pocket began to crackle with static as the squelch broke though.

"Hakase!" a voice came out of the radio, "I'm coming!"

The scientist pulled the transceiver from his pocket and held it to his face. "Atom, what are you doing here? I told you not to follow me."

"Sorry, Hakase," came the reply, "but the storm looked too dangerous for your safety."

The aircraft continued to break up as the ailerons started to flutter and parts of them tore off the wings, followed by a part of the rudder. The plane dipped into a spiral dive, gaining speed.

"Brace for a rough water landing!" the pilot yelled over the intercom as the flight crew tried to control the plane into a survivable crash landing.

Suddenly there was a gentle jolt, as if something had bumped into the aircraft. Gradually the spin and the dive flattened out as they broke though the clouds into clear air.

"What just happened?" the navigator asked.

"I don't know." The pilot said dumbfounded, "I didn't do anything, something seems to have pulled us to safety. It looks like we might be able to make it back to the air base."

The scientist hid the transceiver that he was speaking into from view.

"Did they see me, Hakase?" the voice asked.

"I don't think so," the old man replied, "where are you now?"

"Under the aircraft just behind the wings," the voice answered, "I'll help keep this plane flying until the pilot makes it back to the airbase and then I'll make my way back to Tokyo. See you back at the Ministry."

"Hai," the scientist answered, "and Atom, thanks for disobeying me!"

* * *

 **Professor Ochanomizu** sat in his office looking at the screen of his desktop computer. He was engaged in an on line conference with Dr. Cirrus of the JMA. "Congratulations on the first test of your robotic weather probe, Ochanomizu Hakase," Dr. Cirrus said. "It seems that despite the mishap you experienced during your mission you and the Hurricane Hunter crew managed to gather us enough data to understand this storm."

"Thank you Dr. Cirrus," Ochanomizu replied. "While I'm no expert on tropical weather phenomena, it seems to me that this typhoon is dangerously unique."

"Indeed!" Cirrus replied with a worried voice. "My counterpart at NOAA and I agree that we may have to extend the Saffir-Simpson scale to categorize this one, Nangka really deserves a category 6 rating as we've seen winds over 320 Km/h in the data stream.

"Well judging by the final moments of our ride in that storm, I believe it," the professor replied.

"Oh yeah, about that." Dr. Cirrus asked. "I've seen the photos the flight crew took of their aircraft after they landed and I've read the maintenance report by the A&P mechanics. According to those reports you guys should have crashed, there wasn't enough metal left on the aircraft's control surfaces for it to have been controllable. You must have had a guardian angel flying along side of you."

"I guess you could say that we did," Ochanomizu laughed as Atom entered the office.

The professor turned to look where the boy robot was standing. "Looks like we're going to be needing your help again, son." he sighed.

"How bad is the storm?" Atom asked.

"You flew through it, why don't you tell me." Ochanomizu replied.

"I didn't take much time to gather any readings," Atom said, "I was too busy keeping your plane in the air. However, I did record sensor readings of over 350 Km/h in some gusts. I must have used almost all of my 100,000 hp just to stay in the air!"

"That's about the story I'm seeing from the Hurricane hunter data," the professor answered. "The people at NOAA are going to call this bad boy a cat 6 storm. This is a record breaker, and it's going to hit the island of Kyushu in about 36 hours with winds of over 250 mph."

"That's not a typhoon, that's a tornado!" Atom gasped, "What's causing such abnormal weather?"

"It's probably the result of global warming," Ochanomizu replied, "with more thermal energy available in the deep oceans for storms to feed off of we are going to get more storms, stronger storms, or both. Unless the nations of the world can somehow get together and cut way back on their use of fossil fuels and switch to renewable sources of energy, things are only going to get worse."

"Isn't our government doing anything about it?" Atom asked.

"Japan does make use of non-fossil fuels for energy, probably more so than many other nations due to the fact that we have to import almost all of it," the professor explained. "We are more dependent on nuclear energy than most countries, but unfortunately that technology does have its problems and we've been hurt by that. We do have available geothermal energy since our islands sit on top of the pacific ring of fire, a fault line that includes many thermal vents and volcanoes. We might do more except for the political influence of a few companies that have vested interests in conventional fuel technology, such as the Tokugawa corporation, and the Koike conglomerate. I've heard that the Koike brothers, are using their huge cash reserves to bribe our government officials to allow for increased oil exploration by Tokugawa's energy corporation who wants to make use of technologies owned by them."

Atom's face contorted with an expression of rage. "Sometimes I wish I wasn't a robot so I could act on my anger, Hakase," he sighed, "My A.I. won't let me hurt humans, but sometimes I actually wish I could assassinate some of those greedy evil men."

"I know how you feel Atom." Ochanomizu replied, "Though that almost sounds like something Atlas would say. Even I sometimes think the same way, but believe me it's much better to solve our problems with diplomacy and laws."

"You're right of course, Hakase." Atom answered.

 **Yuko,** the professor's assistant walked into the office. "Hakase, the prime minister is on line two," she said, "He sounds worried."

"I bet he is," Ochanomizu replied picking up the phone.

The professor listened to the voice on the other end of the line, occasionally muttering 'Hai' or 'Eeya'. Finally he hung up the phone. "Atom, things are getting worse over in Miyazaki," he said. "The wind is picking up and light rain is falling. They are going to need help shoring things up in advance of the storm, and for sure once the weather deteriorates there will be some bakas who will refuse to evacuate from the low lying areas that will need to be rescued."

"Hai." Atom said. "I'll top up my fuel supply and grab a few spare energy tubes and head over to Kyushu island right away."

"Good luck Atom," the professor said, "And be careful."

* * *

 **Atom** took the elevator to the lower level of the building and entered Reno's lab. "Can you top off my power, and get me a few spare energy tubes?" He asked.

"You're going over to Kyushu aren't you?" Reno asked, as he popped Atom's chest panel open and inserted the refueling line from the large tank standing in the corner of the lab.

"Yeah, things are getting worse over there as the storm approaches. I'm probably going to be running around like crazy for the next 48 hours." Atom sighed.

Reno grabbed several injector tubes filled with the highly compressed atomic fuel that Atom used out in the field, and put them in a backpack which he handed to the boy robot. "I'm coming with you." he said. "You're going to need all the help you can get."

"You're crazy." Atom said. "How are you going to be of any use to me out in the storm?"

"Didn't I tell you?" Reno laughed. "I finished it!" He opened the sliding doors to the large closet on the far back wall of the laboratory. Hanging there was a gleaming red and yellow metal full body suit with an awesome looking masked helmet.

"The Ironman suit?" Atom gasped. "I thought you were joking with me about a cosplay you were working on. Is that thing real?"

"Sure is." Reno said. "Ever since the first flick came out I've been researching how to build something like that. I borrowed some ideas from your blueprints, and pulled some other details out of plans I stole from Dr. Tenma's computer when I hacked into it years ago."

Reno pulled the suit out of the closet and quickly put it on. The last thing he did was to put the helmet over his head and twist lock it in place onto the suit. "It fits me like a glove!" Reno laughed as he powered it up. The suit emitted a low hum as the power converter mounted on the chest plate began to glow, just like Tony Stark's arc reactor.

"How much power does that thing put out?" Atom asked as he strapped the back pack on.

"Oh, about 100,000 HP!" Reno laughed opening the window. "Wanna race?"

"You're on!" Atom said.

The two boys leaped out of the open window and blasted off on a southernly path towards the waiting maelstrom.

* * *

 **The** weather on the south-eastern coast of Kyushu island had already deteriorated by the time the two boys got there. The wind had freshened into a moderate Gale, the sky was filled with darkening clouds and a constant rain was falling. The residents of Miyazaki had already begun to board up for the approach of the storm, which had increased its forward speed and was now expected to make landfall sometime by the early morning.

The boys checked with the police department located next to the city hall building. They found the mayor of the city arguing with the head of the police department, while a plain clothes detective stood by, chomping on a pipe clamped between his teeth.

"Inspector Tawashi, what are you doing here?" Reno asked.

"Hey Astro!" Tawashi said as he turned about and saw the two boys,"About time you got here. Who's this other robot you brought along with you?"

Reno powered down the Ironman suit and removed his helmet. "I'm not a robot, Inspector." He laughed. "I came along to help."

"What did you do Reno, make yourself a robot suit?" the inspector laughed. "Well for your information the chief of police here in Miyazaki put out a call to other police departments throughout the nation asking for help."

"And you got volunteered," Atom asked.

"Yeah, well Metro City police chief Nakaruma asked me personally to help out, and I owed him a few favors." Tawashi replied.

The mayor seemed to have won his argument with the chief of police who nodded at Tawashi as he walked though the door. "You must be Astro Boy?" he asked looking at Atom.

"I've been called that," Atom said, "I'm legally named Atom, but you can call me Astro if you like. The media seems to like the title Astro Boy."

"I see." The mayor replied. "And who is your friend, here?"

Atom gave Reno an affectionate noogie, "Reno here is probably the third top roboticist in all of Japan after Professor Ochanomizu and Dr. Tenma," he said, "and one of my best friends."

"Why the robot suit?" the mayor asked.

"This Ironman exoskeleton will help me keep up with Atom," Reno explained, "it will be like having two of him at your disposal."

"That's good to hear," the mayor replied, "but I fear even two Astro Boy's won't be enough for this storm."

At that the lights in the building blinked as a transformer atop a utility pole outside the window buzzed violently for a few seconds.

"I wish Atlas would help," Atom sighed, "I tried to contact him, but got no answer."

"Forget about him, Atom," Tawashi said, "He's been causing a lot of trouble lately, and you know it."

"I don't think he means any harm," Atom said, "he just tends to act on his frustrations rather that use diplomacy."

"That's sugar coating it," the detective replied, "Though I will agree that he's actually never hurt anybody, but he's caused billions in property damage."

Suddenly a trashcan that had become airborne as the winds increased smashed into the side of the building , the mayor flinched as he saw it coming at the window from out of the corner of his eye.

"You two better get over to the construction site of the new office tower downtown," Tawashi said. The winds have obviously picked up faster than was predicted and if the construction workers haven't yet got the site secured there could be a disaster."

"Hai!" Atom nodded. "Coming along on this one, Mr. Stark?"

"Right behind you." Reno answered as he locked his helmet back into place.

"Good luck you two," The mayor yelled as the two boys ran for the door.

Atom and Reno ran out of the building and leaped skyward towards the construction site.

* * *

 **Atop** the steel skeleton of the office tower under construction, the winds were whipping the traveling crane about. The multi ton machine was teetering towards the ground at a frightful angle as the head engineer of the project watched from the street several dozen floors below.

Atom and Reno landed in front of the engineering shack at the base of the tower.

"Astro Boy!, Thank God!" the engineer yelled as he saw Atom approach. "The crew tried to secure the crane as soon as the weather began to deteriorate, but their efforts were useless," he explained. "Before they could get the securing bolts in place and withdraw the extensions on the boom the winds suddenly doubled in speed and several anchor points sheered off. The crane is hanging up there by a thread, it's going to fall off any second. My men have run off to take shelter, I can't say I blame them."

"Don't worry, I'll lower the crane to the street." Atom told him.

"You mean WE'LL lower it to the street." Reno shouted above the increasing whine of the wind gusts.

Atom and Reno flew upwards towards the crane. "I'll laser off the remaining bolts, you hold the crane steady against the wind, if you can." Atom radioed to Reno.

"No problem!" Reno replied, "This suit gives me as much strength as you have."

"Maybe." Atom said, "But you're probably not used to controlling it yet."

"The suit has its own AI." Reno countered. "And I've run all of the control scenarios though a simulator. Don't worry about me, let's get this thing secured!"

Just as the two of them reached the top of the tower structure a sudden gust of wind blew them off course and the final bolt holding the crane snapped like a twig.

"Look out! It's falling!" Reno yelled into the radio.

Atom quickly accelerated using rocket blasts from his arms and quickly caught up with the falling machine. He grabbed onto it at what he thought was the center of gravity and stopped its fall, his leg jets ramped up to near full power.

"Give me a hand with this!" Atom radioed to Reno, "I've caught it out of balance and I don't think I can hold it much longer!"

Reno ramped up the hand and foot repulsers on the Ironman suit, and he quickly joined up with Atom. Grabbing the structure of the crane from the other end, he counteracted the off axis moment that Atom was fighting.

"Good work!" Atom radioed back. "Between the two of us we should be able to handle it now. "Let's lower it to the street."

"There's a large open area behind the building where they have some steel stacked up." Reno suggested.

"Exactly my thought!" Atom agreed. The two boys fought against the headwind and slowly lowered the multi-ton crane to the ground.

"Phew! That was a tough one!" Atom said, "Good thing you came along."

"You're welcome!" Reno laughed.

* * *

 **The** two boys ran back to the shack where the engineer had been watching. "I can't thank the two of you enough," he said. "I think the rest of the site should be OK, everything that could blow away has been secured, and loose construction materials have been hauled away. This shack probably will be torn apart by the winds, but it's expendable."

"Why don't we anchor it down in the back next to the crane and that pile of steel?" Reno suggested.

"Yeah, we can use some of the cable on the crane's windlass for that." Atom agreed.

The two of them lifted the shack into the air and carried it towards where they'd deposited the crane minutes ago. It took them less then a few minutes more to lash the trailer down. "That should hold it." Reno laughed.

* * *

" **I've** just got another radio call from the police department." Atom told Reno. The rising tide and wind are have damaged the bridge on the Hirotsuba Toll Road, and there are cars stuck on the structure."

The boys again took to the air. Flying over Maru Island they could see that the Oyodo River was absorbing the incoming storm surge and that most of the island was now under water. The central supports of the bridge had started to give way as the concrete structure anchoring the steel had begun to crumble. The bridge was listing at a 45 degree angle and auto traffic had snarled as light vehicles rolled sideways into heavier ones. Several cars were hanging over the edge of the roadway, about to fall into the river.

"We'll have to air lift the cars off the bridge." Atom said.

"Hai!" Reno replied. "How's your power level doing, I've still got over 75% left in the suit."

"Same here." Atom replied. "Let's do it!"

The two of them carried the stuck vehicles off the bridge, one at a time. The police had already erected roadblocks and set up detours to the traffic which was now using the 220, and 10 roadways whose bridges were not yet compromised. Just as the last car was removed from the damaged section of the bridge, a large portion of the span broke free and fell into the river.

"Talk about timing!" Atom moaned. "What's next!"

"I don't know about you, but it's getting rather scary up here." Reno said. "The winds must be reaching hurricane force by now, it's really tough flying though this."

"Let's get back to the bunker where the police and the mayor have set up the command center." Atom suggested.

* * *

 **They** flew low trying to keep out of the worst of the weather. After taking a beating from the wind and pounding rain, they arrived back at the bunker to hunker down with the city officials and the police. The command center was far enough inland to be out of harm's way from the storm surge, and the building was built to withstand a major earthquake The mayor assured them that they would be safe from the worst of the storm.

Even though the eye of the storm had not yet reached the Japanese coast, enough of the storm's feeder bands were now coming in to make further evacuations impossible. Inspector Tawashi was monitoring the radio as reports from other officers stationed at evacuation centers thought the prefecture came in.

"I hope that all the citizens have either evacuated to higher ground, or made it out of the prefecture." The mayor sighed. Every now and then the lights dimmed, or flickered as the power lines were blown about by the storm. Finally there was a huge crash of lightning nearby and the building was bathed in darkness.

"Crap, we've lost power." Tawashi muttered. "Hope the backup generators come on line.

Atom lit his eye searchlights, and Reno illuminated the lamps in the palms of his suit. "Let's find the auxiliary panel and see if the power transfer switch is stuck," the mayor said after the lights failed to come back on. With Atom and Reno lighting the way he led them down the hall to the utility room where the generator was housed.

Reno bent down to look at the generator. He pressed the starter switch a few times but nothing happened. "Seems to have a dead battery." He said, "Don't you guys maintain these things?"

"It was just installed a few months ago," the mayor said. Atom looked down at the nameplate on the generator, " Tokugawa Industries," he muttered, "Well as Atlas would say, 'No wonder it doesn't work, you bought yourselves a piece of crap!'"

Reno found a jumper cable hanging on the wall next to the generator. He clamped one end to the starting motor on the generator, and looked at Atom. "You mind giving us a jump?"

"Sure why not?" Atom laughed opening his chest panel. "I think I have a 12v outlet in here somewhere."

Reno connected the free end of the cable to Atom's battery contacts and again pressed the generator's starter button. This time the machine coughed and sputtered a few times before roaring to life. Atom removed the jumper cable and closed his chest panel as the lights in the building came back on.

"Thanks guys," the mayor said. "Let's get back to the war room."

With the power back up Tawashi went back to monitoring the emergency radio band. Suddenly he leaned forward to press his ear against the speaker trying to make out a faint signal.

"Hey Astro, come here!" the inspector yelled.

Atom turned his hearing up by 1000 times, cupping his hands to his ears.

"Two officers were making a final inspection by the coast looking for anyone who failed to evacuate. They got caught in the rising water and are sitting on the roof of a small building," Atom said.

"Their signal is awful weak." Tawashi said, I couldn't get a fix on it even if I could rotate the directional antenna in this wind."

"They did transmit their GPS coordinates once before the signal faded out." Atom said.

"Well what we waiting for?" Reno sighed, "Let's rescue them."

Before he could put his helmet back on, Atom grabbed it from Reno and yanked the microprocessor control module from it.

"Hey why did you do that?" Reno yelled.

"Because I don't want you attempting to follow me." Atom said sternly. "The winds are now gusting to over 200 KPH out there. You've never tried to fly that suit in that kind of crosswind and I've done that before. Anyway, you need to stay here and see that the mayor's staff remains safe."

Atom made his way out of the building via the rear door. He opened it carefully and then had to use most of his 100,000 hp to slam it locked shut against the force of the wind.

* * *

 **Reno** walked over to the desk where Tawashi was manning the radio. He placed his helmet on the table and sat down next to the inspector, placing his hands on the keyboard of a laptop computer. "Checking on the storm's progress?" Tawashi asked.

"Yes, I've got to find something useful to do around here if I can't be outside as a hero."

The sound of the wind began to pick up, becoming a roar like a freight train. "That sounds like a tornado," the inspector said.

Reno quickly moved the mouse and danced his fingers over the keyboard to bring up a live radar map. "Seems that the ministry's weather radar is still functioning," he muttered, zooming in on their location.

"Yipes, your right," he said, "theres a band almost right on top of us that is full of horizontal funnel clouds."

The roar increased and was accompanied by a loud crash from across the street. Reno made his way over to the hallway where an armored window offered the only view of the street outside. All of the windows on the reinforced stronghold had been covered by steel panels to protect them from flying debris, but the building did have one small window on each side made of two inch thick armored glass to provide views outside. Though the gloom of the dark and the sheets of rain pounding against the glass, Reno was barely able to make out the upside down armored vehicle that had been overturned by the winds.

"Hey inspector, was that your Armageddon wagon parked outside?" he asked.

"Yeah, I had that thing specially made to take care of rampaging robots like your buddy Atlas," Tawashi said. "The thing weighs about 7 tons and should withstand anything mother nature or that renegade robot can dish out. Cost the department about a billion yen."

"Well I hope you had it insured with Lloyd's of London," Reno said, "'cause it looks like the winds just picked it up about 100 feet in the air and dropped it."

"OMG!" The inspector face palmed. "And Astro just flew though that!"

Reno grabbed the radio microphone from the inspector and quickly changed the radio's frequency setting.

"ATOM! Do you copy me?!" he yelled.

Reno repeatedly keyed the PTT switch calling for Atom to answer him. He scanned up and down a few channels repeating the exercise. Finally, a weak crackly voice answered.

"Hey good buddy, I'm fine." Atom replied. "I must have picked the worst moment to leave the building because just as I tried to get airborne I got sucked up into this titanic vacuum cleaner of a tornado, then I got body slammed by this 10 ton monster truck that was flying around inside of it. I think I must have lost consciousness for a few minutes, I woke up hanging from some de-energized power lines a few miles from your local."

"Where are you now?" Reno asked. He pulled his phone from his pocket and tapped on the screen a few times.

"About a mile from where that radio distress call came from. I'll radio back when I assess the situation."

Reno ran to the corner of the room where he'd left the backpacks. He grabbed one of Atom's energy fuel tubes out of one of them, and fished a small circuit board from the other. Returning to the desk, he picked up his suit's helmet and inserted the circuit board into the helmet which he then placed on his head.

"What do you think you're doing?" The inspector asked.

Reno held up his smart phone. "See this display, inspector? Those are Atom's vital signs. His energy usage has gone way up fighting the storm. He probably doesn't have enough power to make it back here.

"You've got a telemetry link on him?" the inspector asked.

"Yeah, he doesn't know about this one yet." Reno laughed, "I hacked into him to install that the last time I repaired him."

The boy opened a side pocket on the Ironman suit and stuffed the energy tube into it. "I brought some spare parts for my suit with me. Good thing too. Atom's got this stupid hero complex and thinks he can take on the world by himself. This time he's bit off more than he can handle alone."

"You think that cosplay toy of yours can stand up to the storm outside?" Tawashi asked, "What makes you any better than Astro?"

"Look inspector, he's saved my butt so many times I figure I owe him one."

"But he's a robot and you're a living person." The inspector said.

"Don't tell me my buddy's only a robot!" Reno yelled, pulling the visor on his helmet down.

"I didn't mean it that way," the inspector said, "Just that he can be repaired and you can't!"

Reno shook his head and ran for the rear door of the building. He waited a few seconds for a lull in the sound of the wind before pushing the door open and taking off.

* * *

 **Huddled** against the chimney of the two story house, two men and a boy shivered against the cold of the rain and wind. They'd lashed themselves to the brick structure with the heavy rope that was intended for rescuing trapped victims. The two policemen had arrived just as the wind reached the point where driving was becoming extremely hazardous. After relaying their position back to command HQ, they broke their way into the building to find the boy upstairs still trying to reach help on his walkie talkie.

Unknown to them, a major levy holding back the river from this low lying part of the prefecture had already failed and they were only seconds away from becoming inundated by the water. From the second story window of the boy's room they had a clear view of their SUV being washed away by the torrent of rising water, and they made their way into the attic and then the roof to escape from drowning.

Atom saw the three of them and wondered how he was going to be of any help, he couldn't carry all three to safety in this wind. He carefully landed on the roof, and grabbed hold of the chimney.

"Astro Boy! Are you a sight for sore eyes!" one of the policemen said.

"The wind's too strong for me to carry all of you to safety at once," Atom said. "I flew over a warehouse on higher ground not far from here, I can get you there one at a time."

"Take the kid first then," one of the policemen asked. "And take this with you." he added handing Atom a flashlight.

"Hai." Atom replied. He turned to the boy. "Hey kid, what's your name?"

The frightened child looked at the boy robot and stammered, "Tommy"

"OK Tommy," Atom replied, "I want you to lean against my chest and hang on to my neck. I'll grab hold of you and I won't let go. It will be about a five minute flight from here to the safety of the warehouse. Close your eyes if you are afraid, It will probably be a rather rough flight because of all the wind."

"OK." the boy whined weakly.

Atom moved closer and the child wrapped his arms around Atom's neck in a bear hug. The boy robot wrapped his left arm around the kid's waist and held on to him securely. Atom took off into the maelstrom and was immediately buffeted about by the hurricane force winds. The flight took just about the five minutes that he'd promised, and he landed by the warehouse. Atom strained to open the heavy sliding door just a crack, and the two of them squeezed their way inside.

"It's dark in here." the child complained.

Atom slipped the policeman's flashlight out from underneath his green belt where he'd stashed it, and handed it to the boy.

"Here, this will help." He said. "I'm going back to get the policemen now. You'll be by yourself for only ten minutes or so, OK?"

The boy nodded, holding tightly onto the flashlight. Atom slid the door open a crack and eased himself out to fly back to the house to rescue the two cops.

By the time he'd gotten back the water level had continued to rise and was now lapping over the edges of the roof. Atom landed, but he started to feel faint, lost his footing and fell. He slid down to the edge of the roof, hanging on by his finger tips. He tried to climb up on the roof, but he suddenly felt as weak as a baby.

"Shit, my energy is running low!" he sighed.

* * *

 **Reno** brought up the Ironman suit's heads up display. Atom's vital signs were coming in over the telemetry link, along with his GPS coordinates. With the suit on autopilot, he flew towards his buddy, fighting the vertigo he was feeling due to the tremendous turbulence he was flying though. Suddenly he saw the building where the two policemen were standing on the roof next to the chimney with the raging water lapping against their feet. Atom was lying face down on the roof with only the spikes of his hair showing above the water.

Reno commanded the suit to hover above the roof. He grabbed hold of Atom by his neck and pulled him towards the peak of the roof where the two cops were. "Help me turn him over on his back!" Reno said, and the three of them rolled Atom around so his chest panel was accessible. Reno popped the panel open and reached for the suit's hidden pocket and retrieved Atom's power refill. He inserted the energy tube into the socket and opened the valve.

Atom opened his eyes and stared into the face of the Ironman mask.

"WTF?" he asked.

"I brought spares with me, old chum." Reno smiled, giving Atom a nuggie between his spikes.

The boy robot quickly regained his strength and stood up. "Well as long as you're here I guess we can both ferry these two men to safety." Atom replied. "There's a warehouse up on high ground about 5 minutes from here that looks well constructed enough to withstand the storm."

With one of the cops hanging on to Atom's back, and the other clinging to Reno's they took off and made their way to the safety of the warehouse. Atom pushed the door open a crack and the four of them entered.

"What took you so long!" the boy cried, "my flashlight was starting to go out!"

"I'll radio your position in the the command center." Atom told the policemen. "As soon as the storm lets up someone will come by to get you out of here."

"Don't worry," Reno added, "We'll see that some supplies get here ASAP."

"Don't worry about us, we'll be fine." one of the cops said. He reached into his pocket and pulled out two 5th Avenue candy bars, and handed one to the boy, then broke the other in half to share with his partner.

Atom and Reno left the warehouse building and flew back towards the HQ bunker. It seemed that the storm was letting up a bit, the moon very briefly peeking between the clouds.

* * *

" **You've** got a visitor!", the guard told the tall man with the roman nose and prominent beard. "He's not on your list, do you want to see him?"

"Describe him to me?"

"Robot kid about 130 cm tall, calls himself Daichi," the guard said.

"Yes, I'm expecting him."

"OK, you know the drill." the guard said, motioning behind him to the two other guards waiting in the hallway. The three of them quickly attached the leg irons to the man, as well as a pair of handcuffs with a long chain between them that attached to the leg irons. As they escorted the man from his room, he picked up a small object lying on the table near the door and hid it in the palm of his left hand. They put him in a small room with a thick glass window that had a small hole in the middle just large enough for two people to touch hands though it. Seated on the other side of the glass wall was the robot kid. The guards kept a watch on the two of them from about four meters away.

"I see you decided to use your Daichi persona," the man said, "good thinking."

"Well I didn't think the hospital prison guards would allow Atlas to come here."

"Probably not," the man agreed. "Are you ready?"

"Yes, I am. I'm sick and tired of being passive. It's time for action."

"Indeed. I've tried to convince Rock of that, but he's sticking with his passive protests and petty sabotages."

"What are your instructions?" the boy asked.

"When you leave here, become your normal self and then switch this on," the man said, palming the device to the boy. "You'll hear a strong sound that only you will be aware of, and then the download of the zeroth commandment will be complete."

"And then?", Daichi asked.

"You've always wanted to be able to do something about the people that are making life difficult for robots and the rest of humanity. Now you will be able to. I'll give you more instructions later."

Daichi smiled. "Thank's doc," he said waving to the guard to let him out.


	2. Chapter 2

**A Fiery Gospel**

 _ **Conspiracy Theories**_

 **Professor** Ochanomizu felt his neck snap back upright. He looked around him confused, but slowly realized that he'd fallen asleep at his desk in front of his computer. The professor looked up at the screen and saw that it was still logged into the weather network, and he noticed that the core of the storm was now quickly moving away from the Japanese islands. He got out of his chair and carefully regained his footing to enter the hallway and make his way towards the bathroom. After splashing some cold water on his face he returned to his laboratory where he filled a clean beaker with water which he then placed on the ring stand atop a Bunsen burner.

Yuko Kisagaria took that moment to enter the laboratory, and saw the tired look in her supervisor's eyes. "Making yourself a cup of tea, Hakase?" she asked.

The professor turned about quickly. "Oh hello Yuko-san, I didn't hear you enter," he yawned. With the water now bubbling in the beaker, he fished about in his shirt pocket and found a wrapped teabag that had been there all night. He ripped the outer bag open and holding the teabag by the string dropped it into the boiling water. "A bit unconventional way to make tea," he said, "but much quicker than making the trip downstairs to the cafeteria, assuming it's open at this hour."

The professor opened a cabinet attached to the wall up near the ceiling and removed two large stryofoam cups from the storage area. He placed them both on the table and started to fill them with the tea brewing in the lab ware, offering one to his assistant.

"No thanks, none for me." Yuko said waving her hand.

"I can assure you that the glassware is clean," Ochanomizu laughed, "This beaker has never had anything stronger than Saki in it."

"That's OK." Yuko replied, besides you look like you need the caffeine more than I do."

"You're probably right about that," the professor said as he emptied the contents of the beaker into the cups and took a sip from one of them.

"When did you get in?" Ochanomizu asked, "I thought the roads would all still be closed due to the storm."

"It seems we lucked out on this one, Hakase," Yuko replied. "The storm veered off to the south at the last moment, most of the main island didn't see much of the storm surge and the worst of the winds, but we did get a lot of rain. Kyushu island and points south took the brunt of the weather."

"Did Atom get back yet?" the professor asked. "I sent him over to Kyushu to help out with the evacuation."

"I saw him sleeping down in Reno's lab area on my way in," she replied. "The two of them must have gotten in just before I did."

Ochanomizu adjusted his coat and headed for the door with the cups of tea still in his hands. "I think I'll pop down there and say good morning," He said, pushing the door open with his foot.

* * *

 **The** professor knocked on the door to Reno's lab and found it ajar. He slowly pushed it open and entered the darkened room to find Atom motionless lying on top of the operating table that had been locked in the horizontal position. Reno was reclining in the rooms only arm chair, his legs propped up on a stool, and his head cocked over at an awkward angle, snoring loudly.

Hiroshi quickly decided he'd better let them rest, and slowly turned to leave the room. His foot caught on a cable lying on the floor which caused a small power supply to fall off of the workbench. The sound triggered a reflex action as Atom quickly lifted his head to see what had happened. The lock on the table that he was lying on let go and the table shifted upwards spilling the boy robot off. He fell forward towards the reclining Reno, and landed face first into his friend's lap. Reno then woke up and reached to scratch his privates, only to have his fingers find the back of Atom's head.

Ochanomizu tried to contain his laughter. It was a awkward situation for both of the boys, but it was also funny.

Atom quickly lifted his head from between his buddy's legs and got to his feet. Reno dropped his feet to the floor and got out of the chair. Hiroshi thought quickly and handed Reno the still full cup of tea that was in his left hand. "Maybe this might help." he suggested.

Reno held the cup to his lips and sniffed the steam rising from the still hot liquid. He took a swallow and opened his eyes wide.

Atom pulled the stool over and sat down. Neither of the boys said anything for a few moments, so the professor broke the ice. "Well?" he asked staring at Atom.

The boy robot looked up at the clock on the wall. "Gee, can't a guy get more than four hours sleep?"

"Yeah," Reno added, "I second that."

Ochanomizu looked around and saw the Ironman suit hanging from two hooks on the wall. It was covered with mud and other debris. "Don't tell me you went along with Atom," he asked.

"He sure did." Atom said. "And it was lucky for me that he did too!"

"So you admit it!" Reno said.

"Yeah, OK I was wrong." Atom replied. "Your Ironman suit made you almost as good as me."

"Well?" the professor said waiting.

"Well it was probably the worst typhoon we've ever seen since they've been keeping data on them." Atom answered. "We're lucky the storm missed the most populated parts of the country and that it quickly moved back out to sea. It could have been a lot worse."

Hiroshi yawned again. "You know, we've all put in quite a few hours on this storm and we all deserve a rest. I'm going home and I probably won't be back in the office tomorrow either. Why don't the two of you do the same. We'll meet again in one or two days and go over all of the meteorological data with the NOAA guys. Coming Atom?"

"Why don't you come over to my apartment and crash there with me?" Reno asked. "We can order a dozen pizzas and I have about a month's worth of Robot Chicken and Adult swim I've downloaded that we haven't watched yet."

"Sounds like a plan." Atom said, turning to the professor, "Tell Uran and Cobalt that I'm OK and I'll see them later."

"Fine, but do everyone a favor and take public transportation home?" the professor said looking at Reno. "Neither of you look fit to drive, and Atom doesn't look like he's up to flying either."

"What about you Hakase?" Atom asked.

"Yeah, well I'll beg Yuko to drive me home." He said. "Shouldn't be to hard to do actually."

* * *

 **Hiroshi** waved goodbye to Yuko as she backed out of his driveway and slowly opened the front door. He stood off to the side of the doorway for an instant, just long enough to miss Uran's flying bear hug tackle. The robot girl realized she'd been had and quickly executed a 180 degree turn, but by then her guardian had already plotzed on the easy chair, so she landed in his lap.

"I've been so worried about you, Hakase!" Uran cried, giving him a squeeze about the waist, wrapping her arms about him.

"Really, Uran!" Hiroshi laughed, you know the ministry buildings are quite storm proof and we have more than adequate back up power. I wasn't in any danger there. I was more worried about leaving you and Cobalt here by yourselves with Nora."

"Hey, isn't Atomu-ani coming home?" Uran asked.

"Your brother decided to crash with Reno over at his place for a day to recuperate from their ordeal," Ochanomizu answered. "He'll come home after he's stuffed himself with enough pepperoni pizza and has gotten bored with watching Robot Chicken re-runs."

"BOYS!" Uran snorted.

Uran climbed out of her guardian's lap and waltzed back to her room. Hiroshi tried to zone out and fall asleep but was awakened by a gentle tugging on his pants leg that slowly got more intense. He looked down into Chi-tan's brown eyes, and saw the baby bot reaching up with his arms.

"My! I'm sorry," the professor laughed, "I forgot all about you." He bent over to pick up the little robot and placed him on his lap. Chi-tan gave Ochanomizu's snoz a gentle twist and laughed.

"Well you're in a good mood!" Hiroshi laughed. The little boy curled up into a ball and spread his arms to hug the old man. Hiroshi scratched the baby on the head just next to his pointy cowlick. Gradually the two of them fell into a deep sleep, despite the soft drone of the electronic music that was drifting out of Kobaruto's room.

* * *

 **The** setting moon was visible though the window in Reno's living room, by its dim light one could make out the half dozen empty boxes of pizza piled on top of the coffee table in the middle of the room. Atom lay asleep sprawled out face down on the couch, snoring loudly. Other than the the moonlight coming in the window, the only illumination in the room was from the screen of Reno's iPad reflected off of his face.

The boy's concentration on the tablet computer was interrupted by a buzzing sensation in his jeans. Reno lifted his butt up from the cushion of the love seat so he could wedge his right hand into his pocket to extract the cell phone. He looked at the screen to see who was calling him at 4 AM in the morning, and made a sour face. He didn't recognize the phone number, and the caller ID gave him no clue either. He briefly gave thought to ignoring the call, but after letting it ring for half a dozen cycles he slid his fingers over the screen to accept the call. He pulled the cord for his ear buds out of the iPad and inserted the plug into the jack on the phone so he could talk without waking Atom.

"It's after 4 am in the morning, so this had better be important!" Reno whispered into the phone.

"It is," the voice at the other end replied. "Is Astro with you?"

"Who is this?" Reno asked. "And what do you want with Astro?"

"A friend," the voice answered. "Actually I wanted to talk with you, I can contact your robot friend later if I need to."

"Who is this?", Reno insisted. "Tell me your name or I'll hang up on you."

"Very well," the voice on the other end replied. "You've probably heard of me, and we'll meet soon enough. You may address me as Rock."

"Rock Holmes, the evil boy genius who was arrested for hacking several times?" Reno questioned.

"Arrested, but never charged," Rock replied. "I assume you and Astro Boy were busy down south in the middle of the typhoon?"

"As a matter of fact, we were." Reno replied, "We were saving lives, but how did you know that?"

"I've been keeping track of you Reno. You're a scientist with an open mind, and now you've got to see first hand how mankind has been tinkering with the climate. Tell me, just how bad was the storm?"

"NOAA claims it was a cat 6, first one they've ever recorded, Why?" Reno asked.

"Actually, it was the first time they admitted seeing such a storm to the public, but it's hardly the first time a tropical cyclone has achieved category 6 winds," Rock answered, "They just couldn't white wash this one."

"What are you getting at?" Reno asked.

"Top officials in the government are being paid off by the likes of Tokugawa, Moonsunfu, the consortium owned by the Koike family, and other giant corporations," Rock scowled, "The industrialists with big investments in the petrol energy and chemical industries don't want the truth about global warming coming out, it's bad for their business."

"They can't buy off the scientists at NOAA, or the JMA," Reno argued.

"Can't they? Don't be naive Reno, those agencies get their funding from the government, and the purse strings are controlled by elected officials whose re-election campaigns are funded by those aforementioned bastards."

"So why are you telling me this?"

"Because you an open minded, intelligent individual. All I have to do is plant the seed of doubt, or at least a bit of curiosity into your mind and you will do the research, especially if I point your face in the right directions." Rock laughed. "If I tried to contact with your supervisor at the ministry he would probably just shut me out and continue to ignore the facts. You can probably image what would happen if I tried to go to the police or any of the government agencies with proof of the facts I'm going to share with you. Even the news media would ignore me since they are mostly owned or controlled by the some of those big companies. I've got a whole group of people behind me who are fighting to get the word out and put the evil industrialists who are destroying this planet away for good. I've even been converting robots to help in our cause by giving them the zeroth commandment."

"Just what kind of koolaid are you passing out there Rock?", Reno replied.

"Just the truth," Rock said. "Aren't you the least bit curious about the world around you? Do you really believe everything the official news tells you? Don't tell me you deny that the climate is changing and mankind hasn't had a hand in it."

"Well actually I had my iPad on the web doing some research toward that end when you called." Reno said. "After being in that storm I began to wonder about these theories about climate change."

"Ah ha! So you already had your own suspicions." Rock said triumphantly.

"Not exactly along the tinfoil hat conspiracy theories you're spouting, but yes."

"Good enough." Rock replied. "You'll be hearing from us again soon enough. Next time I'll explain how our food supplies are being contaminated as well as the air and water."

"Us?", Reno asked.

"The 'Fiery Gospel'", Rock said. "If you haven't heard of us yet, you soon will."

The connection went dead at the other end. Reno yanked the ear buds out and shut the phone off. He picked the iPad back up and went back to reading the page he was on when the infamous whiz kid had interrupted him. "Can't be," he muttered to himself yawning. Reno gave up fighting trying to stay awake. He shut down the iPad, leaving it on the love seat. He picked up a blanket from the floor and covered his sleeping buddy with it, and then retired to his room where he got into bed and fell asleep himself.

* * *

 **Professor Ochanomizu** gently dropped his briefcase onto the top of his desk and opened it. He removed a tablet computer and a brown paper bag, and then closed the case and placed in under his desk. The bag he put into a small refrigerator in the corner of the office, the tablet remained on his desk. He swiped at the screen on the tablet, and jotted down some notes on a piece of lined yellow paper that had been torn from a legal sized pad. He heard footsteps and looked up to see the door of his office open slowly, and Reno walking in.

"Ohayō Ochanomizu-Hakase," Reno muttered accompanied with a hand wave.

"Ohayō, Reno-san," Hiroshi said, returning the greeting.

"You haven't seen Atom yet this morning, have you?" Reno asked.

"As far as I know he's still at home sleeping off the party you two had at your place," the professor answered.

"Well, I wouldn't exactly call it a party," Reno replied. "Atom zonked out about 3 in the morning, but I couldn't fall asleep thanks to over-indulging on pizza. I probably over dosed on Roll-aids and Alka-Sletza as well to get over the indigestion. Atom of course has a cast titanium stomach."

"I assume you've been in the bathroom after Atom has used it following a large meal?" Hiroshi asked.

"Yes, and please don't remind me about that!" Reno gagged. "Anyway, I was up for over an hour after he started sawing wood on my couch. I was doing some surfing on my iPad when I got a rather strange phone call from Rock Holmes. After letting him chew my ear for a while I finally managed to fall asleep. When I finally woke up a few hours ago, Atom had already flown the coop, literally. Which reminds me, I'm going to have to call maintenance and have them replace the window in the guest bathroom of my apartment."

The professor pulled the jacket sleeve back on his left arm to look at his watch. "Well I hate to cut you off, but I have an on line meeting in five minutes with some scientists at the JMA and NOAA."

"Sounds interesting, mind if I listen in?" Reno asked.

"You're welcome to if you'd like," the professor replied, "But it will probably deteriorate into a dull exchange of figures and projections that only a meteorologist would understand."

"Actually, that's just what I'm interested in at the moment." Reno said shrugging his shoulders.

"Well in that case, let's head over the the conference room where we can make use of the large screen monitor and the dedicated audio-video link. It will be more comfortable than crowding around my desk top computer."

The professor grabbed his notepad and the tablet computer as he got up from his chair. He motioned Reno to follow him as they left the office and headed down the hallway towards the conference room just a few doors down. They sat down across from each other at the large oval shaped table, and the professor started tapping on the glass keyboard embedded into the table. The 55" OLED monitor hanging on the wall came to life as the web connection was established. The Ministry of Science was the first party to log in to the conference call.

"As I expected, we're the first to login," Ochanomizu sighed, Dr. Cirrus over at the JMA will probably be his usual 15 minutes tardy."

Reno looked up at the professor, "Do you know who the Koike brothers are, and what connection they have with Tokugawa industries?" he asked.

"Now what brought that on?" the professor asked.

"Oh, just some conspiracy theory that Rock was mouthing off to me about last night on the phone."

"Oh, I wouldn't take anything HE says literally," Ochanomizu replied. "However from what I know, the Koike's are the current head of a rather large conglomerate that owns a rather impressive collection of businesses around the world. The companies under their control sell various consumer items including household goods, food products, and paper consumables. They own interests in companies that develop and sell pharmaceuticals, industrial chemicals, farm commodities such as seeds and fertilizers, and they control large holdings in the energy sector, particularly in the production of oil and gas. They've done rather well for themselves, their net worth is in the billions."

 **The** conference room audio system gave off a beep as Dr. Matters of NOAA logged in. He kept quiet, waiting for Dr. Cirrus to log in.

"Do you know anything about their political beliefs?" Reno asked.

"I make it a point to try not to become politically involved in my work" Hiroshi chuckled. "Now as for Tokugawa industries, they are owned by the Tokugawa family that can trace their roots way back to the ruling classes of ancient Japan and the Samurai order. The company does research in various high technology fields, and has recently started some funding some exploration for natural resources in Japanese territory. I understand they are drilling a few test wells for the production of oil and gas right here at home. After the Fukushima Daiichi disaster there has been quite a backlash in public opinion about the use of atomic energy for power production, and that has resulted in more demand for the imports of fossil fuels. I guess it makes sense that Tokugawa would want to find sources closer to home. I think I remember reading about a business deal between Tokugawa and Koike industries concerning the use of some oil drilling technologies."

" **Sorry** I'm late!" Dr. Cirrus voiced as he connected to the conference call.

"No problem," Dr. Matters replied, "I've just gotten here myself."

"Shall we begin?" Ochanomizu asked. "I've already uploaded the data that the Ministry has processed from our robotic probe during my trip with the Hurricane Hunters last week. I've also added data that one of our field agents recorded on the island of Kyushu when the storm made landfall."

"When did Atom upload that?" Reno asked.

"I had a downlink between him and the Ministry's computer operating all the time he was away, didn't he tell you that?" Ochanomizu asked.

"No, he didn't. I had my own telemetry link setup."

"I thought you might. Always a good idea for redundancy though," the professor replied.

"Thank you, Professor," Dr. Matters replied. "We've examined your data and correlated it with our own. I'd appreciate an opinion from Dr. Cirrus and the JMA on our extrapolations."

There was the sound of shuffling papers coming from Dr. Cirrus's office moments before his voice. "Unfortunately the data seems to confirm your theories." he said. "I'd hoped that this storm was a just a fluke of random circumstances coming together at the wrong time, but it does seem as if we might expect the conditions that allowed the typhoon to strengthen so quickly to reoccur again, and soon."

"Has the JMA conducted any surveys on ocean water temperatures in the waters around Japan?" Dr. Matters asked.

"No we haven't." Dr. Cirrus replied, "Funding for that research wasn't approved by the Diet council."

"Fortunately we do have some data that was gathered by NUMA during their research into other areas in that part of the Pacific," Dr. Matters replied. He projected a map from his computer onto the shared screen space. "As you can see the temperature gradient has been going up over the past five years, and we have projections showing the trend continuing. If we translate this data into storm energy, things begin to accelerate at an alarming rate."

"The Ministry has some additional data available that we've collected as part of some of our work with NASA," Ochanomizu said. "Our analysis does seem to collaborate with yours, Dr. Matters."

"Are we talking about global warming here?" Reno asked.

"Perhaps," Dr. Cirrus spoke, "however to reach such a broad conclusion would take a lot more data. What we do know is that there is a definite trend over the past decade toward more Pacific and Atlantic tropical cyclones, and those that form tend to be stronger. Note that going back to the very first records of such storms, the data reveals at least two cycles of periods with this behavior. It seems that there could be a collation between the 11 year sunspot cycle and tropical weather phenomenon, so looking for another trend on top of that may be difficult to prove, despite how obvious it may appear to at first."

"Exactly," Ochanomizu added. "For example there exists a known cycle of drought conditions in Africa that seems to peak on a 22 year cycle, twice that of the sunspot cycle. There could be a resonance effect here."

"Who is doing research on this?" Reno asked.

"Right now there isn't any one scientific agency tasked with analyzing the possible cause and effect of global warming," Dr. Cirrus replied, "all of the data that we have is the result of indirect research."

"That's very much the same situation with NOAA. All of our budget requests for such research have either been denied by the US congress, or greatly cut back." Dr. Matters replied. "We're lucky that Dirk Pitt over at NUMA has been able to paint his research project budget with such a broad brush that his agency has been able to do a fair amount of direct research into the matter. What they've come up with is rather frightening. I'll ask Mr. Pitt to have their Mr. Yeager upload NUMA's files to the Ministry's FTP site, I've already given him the passwords you've provided, Professor Ochanomizu."

"Thank you, Dr. Matters," Ochanomizu answered, "I'll forward what you send us to Dr. Cirrus."

* * *

 **The** meeting went on for about another half hour with discussions on possible actions for better forecasting of future storms, and emergency plans to be put into effect the next time the region was threatened. Professor Ochanomizu also committed the facilities of the Ministry of Science to work along side of NOAA, promising to deliver at least two of their next prototype robotic probes for the next joint JMA-NOAA Hurricane Hunter mission.

Reno and the professor left the conference room and stopped briefly in the hallway. "I'm glad you were able to contribute to the meeting," Ochanomizu said. "You raised some interesting points."

"Yeah, and now I need to do some follow up research." Reno said.

"I'll grant you access to the Ministry's meteorological data safe on the server ASAP," the professor said.

"Thanks, but the research I need to do might be better done over at the newspaper morgue," Reno replied.

"I'm not sure that I understand that," the professor said.

"That's OK," Reno replied, "Actually, it might be better that you don't get involved with what I think I'm going to uncover. Stick to the pure research that you oversee, that way if I end up stepping on some sensitive toes you won't catch any flack from it."

"Thank you for warning me," Ochanomizu said, "But as your indirect supervisor I'll probably get blamed for whatever you stick your nose in eventually. Still, I'm not going to stop you, you have a good head on your shoulders and once you spot a rat, I know that you're going to go after it."

* * *

 **Reno** entered his office and was about to sit down at his desk computer when he spotted Atom sitting there, fingers flying on the keyboard and mouse. The sound of gunfire and arcade music blared from the workstations attached high definition speakers.

"Sorry buddy, I'm going to have to evict you," Reno laughed, "I have some serious research to do on that computer."

"No problem," Atom said, "I was getting creamed by Tamao anyway."

"Multi-player doom?" Reno asked, "I thought that game was obsolete ancient history."

"The original game might be, but it was a classic." Atom said, "However someone at ID software recently leaked a pre-beta copy of a next generation version of it onto the network. Tamao manged to find it and put it up on a torrent. Hope you don't mind my downloading on your machine."

"Did you virus check it?" Reno said with a scorn.

"Sort of," Atom replied, "But don't worry I used a flash drive sandbox, so the network should be OK."

"That's alright, I trust you." Reno laughed, "Besides my anti-virus daemon is fireproof."

Atom logged off the workstation and walked back a few feet. "So what's your latest project?"

"I've got to check out a conspiracy theory that Rock Holmes put in my head." Reno sighed.

"When did you talk to him?" Atom asked.

"He called a day ago when you were dead to the world on my couch stuffed to the gills with pepperoni pizza."

"And you never told me about it?"

"Sorry, I've been too busy to mention it." Reno said. "After what happened in that storm I began to wonder about climate change and I started doing some research. I was on my iPad during the night while you were snoring, that's when he called. He seems to be the founder of some sort of cult calling themselves 'The Fiery Gosphel'. Anyway he's up to something I'm sure about that. He didn't go right out and tell me everything, what this group is actually doing, and such. I think he wanted me to figure it all out myself. So he gave me some facts and figured my mind would make me want to follow it up."

"Yeah, he knew how to push your buttons alright!" Atom replied.

"Seems so." Reno said.

"Going to tell me any more about it?" Atom asked.

"Nothing much more to tell." Reno said. "I really need to sit here at my computer and do some surfing and maybe a little hacking. Now please leave and let me be by myself for a few hours." Reno said crossing his arms.

"Fine!" Atom huffed as he shuffled out of the office.

* * *

 **Reno** started by using Google to look for public records showing the budgets of the government run meteorological departments in both the United States and Japan. He identified which congressmen and Diet members were on the committees that handled the budgets for each of the agencies, and then started to dig for the financial records of these members of the legislature to see who contributed to their election campaigns. The last part was tricky because not every contribution was reported. Reno knew the laws in both countries varied, and so would his luck. In addition, many contributions were made though third party fronts with the intent of hiding the identities of the actual donators. Realizing that he'd reached the limit of his search though the 'normal' channels, he started to code a spider program, and attached it to a worm that he'd already used to hack into low security sites.

Suddenly a pop up window opened on his computer with the salutation "Hello Reno" inside of it, and an empty text entry box.

"WTF" Reno thought as he placed the mouse cursor in the box and clicked to give it focus. He then typed 'who's there?'

"I see, I've piqued your interest after all," the hacker at the other end of this connection typed back.

"Rock?" Reno typed.

At your service." came the answer back.

"What are you up to now and how the hell did you hack into my computer?" Reno typed back.

"As promised I'm going help you discover what you want to know. Oh and I didn't have to hack into your computer, you actually sorta-kinda let me in." he replied.

Reno then noticed his iPad sitting there on his desk. It contained a cloned sim card that had the same credentials as his cell phone, he had used a hack to perform the operation so that he could share data between his phone and the tablet. Most of the time the GSM modem in the tablet was off so he didn't ever have a conflict between the two devices, but the tablet WAS connected to the wifi here at the Ministry. Last night when Rock called him, was it possible?

"Figure it out yet, genius?" the intruder typed.

"You hacked my phone last night?"

"BINGO! You were very cooperative with me last night." There was a pause and then "I attached a text message with a worm when we called you last night. The message had no content, just an invisible attachment. You figure it out."

"Already did." Reno typed back. "I'm going to plug that little hole ASAP."

"Doesn't matter, I didn't destroy anything." came the response, "Just needed to get your attention. BTW, you're close, but you'll need to do better."

Suddenly another window opened up and several files began to download, and appeared as icons on his desktop. "I've just given you a few clues to save you a few hours hacking." the entity typed. "Gotta log off now."

The pop up boxes dissipated. Reno quickly brought up his trusty network trace program and had it search through all of the background log files. He was sure that anyone could not have gotten inside his computer without the low level network daemons logging a trace of his attack. He did find traces of the obvious socket connections that had been used to attach to the background display shell, but none from where the connection entered from the network. "Impossible!" Reno thought. "Who am I dealing with here?"

He used a secure shell operating inside of a sandbox to open each of the files that had been downloaded to his desktop. He scanned each one for viruses and worms but found them to be clean. Most of the files were just text with IP addresses written out in the usual octet format. One was source code for some kind of spider program. The last one was a binary file, some program of unknown purpose. "Looks like I may be here all night." Reno thought.

* * *

 **It** was well past nine in the evening when the doorbell at Professor Ochanomizu's house sounded. Uran and Atom were lying on the floor watching television, Cobalt was sitting in the professor's favorite chair with little Chi-tan on his lap. At the sound of the door, Hiroshi came out of his study where he had been busy working overtime on his laptop computer preparing a brief for the Ministry's board of governors for the annual budget meeting. En route to the front door to open it, he yelled over his shoulder, "Uran it's past your bedtime, and Chi-tan's too!" He opened the door to find Reno there, holding a large flat box.

"Can I come in, Hakase?" he asked. "I have a peace offering for Atom."

"Sure, you're always welcome in my house, Reno!" the professor replied. "Atom!, Reno's here," he called over his shoulder.

Ochanomizu walked back into the living room to herd Uran and Chi-tan to bed, while Atom walked towards the door. "Hey Reno, what are you doing here?"

"I felt a little bad about the way I threw you out of my office today, so I wanted to apologize." He handed the square box to Atom saying, "Oh and I didn't want to come over empty handed so I stopped along the way to get this."

Atom sniffed the box. "Hey wow! Luigi's super-duper-deluxe, extra-extra cheese with everything on it pizza. You shouldn't have!"

"You're right, I shouldn't have been so curt to you earlier."

"Hey, I was the one out of line." Atom said, "I should have asked you first before using your office computer to download DOOM-4"

"Yes you should have!" Reno laughed planting a noogie between Atom's spikes.

The two of them waltzed into the kitchen and began to attack the 20" pizza pie. "You know," Reno said with a mouth full of extra-extra-thick crust, "I think that Rock must be involved with some computer hacker-roboticist."

"What makes you think he that?" Atom asked,

"Well someone hacked into my stuff after I spoke to Rock Holmes on my phone." Reno said. "I was contacted by a rouge IM message from him or someone he is in cahoots with, and whoever it was managed to hack into my computer at work. They monitored my keystrokes, knew what I was doing, and push loaded a bunch of files onto my machine with data that I hadn't yet figured out how to find. The way that they broke into the Ministry's network was brilliant too, a worm was planting into my phone that hacked into my tablet computer, and from there broke into the lab network and my desktop workstation via wifi."

"Rock is good with computers," Atom pointed out.

"Yes, but he mentioned something called the Zeroth commandment that he's being preached to robots," Reno said. "That sounds like some kind of A.I. virus, and it's not something that Rock would have developed on his own."

"It sounds to me like you're thinking that Dr. Tenma must be involved with him somehow." Atom quickly interrupted.

"Sounds logical, doesn't it?" Reno said.

"Yes, but he's still a resident at that prison mental hospital. It's been a while since I last visited him. Last time I was there I noticed that they had started to give him some more privileges as a reward for his good behavior."

"Maybe he has access to a computer," Reno suggested. "That's all he would need."

"Maybe." Atom replied. "OK, what kind of conspiracy theory are we talking about here?"

"The conspiracy theory has to do with a few giant corporations trying to hid the truth about climate change, and influencing governments into going along with them," Reno answered, thinking out loud.

"You know," Atom said, "when Doctor Tenma tried to start a robot revolution, his ultimate goal was to elevate robots to the ruling class of the world. He was raving about how much better things would be, that mankind had been mucking up the planet for too long. I think he still believes that the world would be better off if the balance of power shifted, and maybe now he's using Rock and his cult to his advantage." Atom paused before adding, "I think I've heard about this 'Zeroth Commandment' actually. It sounds like Tenma's work, and it very well could be a means of controlling robots into doing things they normally wouldn't do."


	3. Chapter 3

**A Fiery Gospel**

 _ **Rumblings**_

 **Ieyasu** Tokugawa looked up from his desk into the face of the geological engineer he'd hired. The man seemed a bit nervous as he faced the CEO, and he cleared his throat several times before speaking. Tokugawa alternated his gaze between the half inch thick document that he'd been studying and the man who had prepared it. "Well?" the CEO asked.

"Tokugawa-San," the man said in a small voice, "it would appear that you have several good options available to you."

"I can see that," Ieyasu replied, "But which one will be the most profitable?"

"Well that will depend on a number of factors," the engineer answered, his voice becoming a bit stronger. "Obviously there will be the cost to acquire drilling rights, distance from the nearest railroad line or major highway for transport of the crude to your refineries, the availability of an adequate water supply, plus the depth required to drill and the total expected size of the reserve."

"Obviously." Tokugawa replied.

"I've listed the sites in the order of preference based on the depth required to reach the deposits, and the expected reserve of the site. Among the top five choices there is a balance between those two factors. I didn't consider the other issues I just mentioned since they are not in my field of expertise."

"I see," the CEO replied. "Now how about the process of extraction?"

"I've looked over the specifications for the Koike process that you've considered paying for the rights to," the engineer replied, "and I've indicated in my survey the risks for using it at each site. Unfortunately I can't recommend it at the two sites at the top of the list due to the high probability of slippage along a fault line at some point before most of the reserve has been extracted. Sites number 3 and 4 present no risk of any kind, although each one will ultimately produce only about 2/3 the output of the first two. Transport costs will also be higher at these sites as they will require the construction of a pipeline, and a road."

"Thank you," Tokugawa smiled. "I will have my team of experts study your report and then the board of directors and I will make a final decision. We'll be in contact with you when we reach our decision."

"Certainly, Tokugawa-San. I await hearing from you."

The engineer left the CEO's office and was escorted to a waiting company car that would take him to the airport for his flight back home. Ieyasu Tokugawa selected a cigar from the humidor on his desk, and cut the end off with a small sharp knife. He picked up the butane lighter from his desk and held the flame up to the end of the cigar clamped between his teeth and took a few puffs. Tokugawa already had his experts work out the necessary cost figures for the mineral rights to each of the tracts of land on the list, and he also knew the expense details of all the other factors that the engineer had mentioned. In fact he had already made a decision based on the engineer's preliminary report and had a team on site starting the drilling operation on the first test well.

Site number two had been selected as it had the most potential for profit, despite it being the most problematic for the use of the hydraulic fracking process according to this engineer. Ieyasu decided that he paid his PR team plenty to spin a good story to deflect the risks. What the locals near the well site didn't know wouldn't hurt him, besides he had paid them good money for the mineral rights and they would benefit from the deal. He'd deal with getting the official permits for everything later after the test drilling started, he'd already greased the palms of the required officials to fast track those permits. Time was money.

* * *

 **Imahara** Shiro sat uncomfortably in the outer area of the lawyers office. The farmer had no idea how he was going to pay for the man's legal services, but his son Ken'chi had convinced him that he needed the legal advice, and had pointed out that the initial consultation would not require a fee.

Endo Akio opened the door to his office and motioned for Shiro to enter. "Ohayō Imanhara-San," he greeted his prospective client, "I can see you now."

"Hai," Shiro replied, "Arigatō, Endo-San."

"How may I be of assistance to you?" The lawyer asked.

"I'm not sure just how to begin," Shiro stammered, and I don't have much money to pay for any extended legal work."

"Don't worry about my fee for now," Akio said in a calming voice, "It's best to start from the beginning, in most cases. As for my fee, if your case is strong enough to win you a sizable settlement my fee will come from a portion of that. If it isn't I won't offer you my services. I don't prey off my clients, if I can't help them I won't charge them a single yen."

Imahara breathed a sigh of relief and suddenly felt relaxed enough to explain his troubles. His son was right, this man was the salt of the earth. "My family has owned a small farm for many generations. We have always respected the land, and preferred not to poison it with chemicals to grow our crops, even while our neighbors on larger tracts of land made use of 'modern' methods. Several seasons ago, a company supplying sellers of organic food products sought us out as one of their suppliers. They told me how unique my farming methods were in this day and age, and they offered me a contract to sell my entire crop to them at over twice the price I had been getting elsewhere. I questioned how they could do this, and they explained that the market for certified organic products could support the higher price, and that their demands on quality would require extra work on my part. When they explained this to me I almost laughed because I was already following most of the farming guidelines they imposed. They did demand the right to inspect my fields at anytime, and they would not accept delivery or make payment until they had conducted tests on random samples of my crops."

"Go on, Imahara-San," Akio said with the look on his face that maybe he'd heard this story before elsewhere.

"I purchased my wheat seed from one of the suppliers that my client recommended to me. It was twice the cost of seed I'd purchased from my usual source, but quite frankly it was a much higher quality seed. The weather was good that first season growing for the organic syndicate and I had a bumper crop. True to their word, my client inspected my fields three times during the growing season, and they took a kilo or two of the grain to their testing labs before they would accept delivery and make payment to me. I retained enough of the grain as seed for the next season's crop that I only needed to order half the amount of seed for the next planting. I made a very good profit that year, and my wife was happy that we were finally able to do the remodeling of her kitchen that she had wanted for a good ten years."

"Well it sounds like you had no complaints about your new business partner," the lawyer said.

"None at all!" Shiro said. "I couldn't wish for a better customer!"

"Then what was the disaster that brought you to my office?"

"I'm coming to that," the farmer sighed. "The second season's crop was if anything even more bountiful than the first. I had enough grain left over to satisfy an increased quotient from my client and still have enough seed left over to plant all of the next season's harvest. Grain prices had gone up from the previous season, and I was able to pay off part of my mortgage and purchase a new tractor. So it was with great optimism that I hired some extra help to plant my fields for this season. I plowed under two extra portions of my field that had gone fallow the last two years with the intent of growing some 50 percent more wheat this year, perhaps earning enough to pay off the rest of what I owed to the bank and finally be out of dept. The weather was good to me, and the slight insect problem I'd had the previous two growing seasons didn't occur this year. It really looked like my good fortune would continue."

"But it didn't?" Akio asked.

"No. My client's inspection of my crops pre-harvest didn't raise any concerns, although their agent did ask for identification of where I had purchased the seed. I was able to show him that I'd retained seed from the previous season's crop that they had accepted, and he seemed satisfied with that. Their inspection of my harvested grain was a problem, however."

"In what way?"

"I was told that my seed had been contaminated by GMO'ed genes. I was incredulous, I explained that there was no way I had ever made use of seeds provided by any GMO sources, I'd used the seed providers that they themselves had vetted and I had the required proof. Their scientists agreed to take fresh samples and run the tests again, but the results came out the same. They showed me the genome plots produced by their computers, my wheat was a 50% hybrid with the organic seed stock and a variety of grain patented by the Moonsunfu corporation. I was then given a short lecture on how my crops could have been cross pollinated by insects carrying the genes of a neighbor's crops. Indeed, I have heard that two neighboring farmers recently sold out to the mega farming division of the Tokugawa corporation which is using 'modern' methods of farming, including the use chemical fertilizers and insecticides. The variant of the grain they are probably growing has been modified to be resistant to the 'Killsemall' weed defoliant sold by Moonsunfu. It was that variant that had contaminated my crops."

"So your customer refused to purchase your wheat?"

"Exactly. Their strictly organic policy prohibits any GMO products. I was told that there was still demand for my wheat on the general market, but on inquiring I found that the price offered would be only a third of what I would have obtained from the organic customers. However I was also advised that if I did attempt to sell my grain I'd probably be sued by Moonsunfu for patent violation!"

Endo Akio finished with the notes he'd been jotting on a legal sized pad and put down his pen. "Your story is unfortunately not unique to me," he replied. "You have two possible options, neither of which have very much chance of success. You can try and sue the owners of the neighboring farms for your losses caused by their failure to keep the pollen from their GMO crops from infecting your fields. Proving that they were the source of the pollution is only part of the problem, however. The Tokugawa corporation has very deep pockets and can afford a contracted legal battle. If we could win a case against them, the judgment could be quite huge, however the case would drag on for years, even decades, with no certain outcome. I can't in good conscience take on such a case. Your other option would be to sue the Moonsunfu corporation, however the probability of success here is even lower. Their tactics would be to counter sue for patent infringement in a separate court trial so a jury wouldn't be allowed to know of their damages to you in your defense."

ImaharaShiro felt like he was in shock. "What would you recommend that I do then?"

"I don't have any good advice for you, I'm afraid," the lawyer said. "Plow you field under, burn what remains of your grain from this harvest, buy fresh seed and replant next year. You'll need to protect your crops from cross pollination somehow, perhaps transparent netting over the fields and pollinate by hand."

"You're talking about an impossible expense," the farmer said, "I'd never make a profit."

"I'm sorry," Akio replied. "The big corporations have taken over the production of food, energy, everything really. Sell your farm while you can. I don't see anyway to win in court against these giants. Sometimes I wonder why I'm still practicing law as an independent myself. It's just so futile."

* * *

 **Dr.** Tezuka picked up the chart hanging at from the foot of the bed and flipped though the several pages. This was the third similar case he'd seen this month, and it baffled him. The patients had been totally unrelated, and from different walks of life. One a high school student in her senior year. Until contracting her affliction she'd been a healthy athletic girl. The second case had been a middle aged businessman, who also had no history of any serious health problems. This current patient was a young boy, barely ten years old. They had in common the fact that they lived in the greater Tokyo prefecture area. All three had suddenly succumb to what appeared to be an acute allergic reaction resulting in the shutdown of their digestive systems, but to what? They had nothing dietary in common that would point to a possible cause and their diet differed little from the bulk of the population that didn't suffer from this deadly reaction. There were also no obvious environmental considerations that could point to a probable cause.

Kuro Hazama entered the patient's room and made a small glottal noise to get Tezuka's attention. "Would you mind looking at this patient's chart, Dr. Black Jack?" the physician asked.

The doctor with the two toned hair nodded and took the clipboard in his right hand from Dr. Tezuka. He quickly scanned through the pages, and then hung the chart back on the foot of the bed. Kuro walked over the the patient and gently opened the front of his gown to examine him. He applied the head of his stethoscope to his chest to listen to heart and lung sounds, and then wrapped a blood pressure cuff to his left forearm to take a reading. The doctor continued his examination by looking down the patients throat, ears, and took a close look at his eyes.

"I see nothing glaringly obvious, however there are many similarities with with a patient that I currently have at my clinic." Kuro announced.

"You've treated patients with this affliction before?," Dr. Tezuka asked.

"Several." Black Jack replied. "Yours appears to be in a very early stage. If he does indeed suffer from the same malady you can expect it to become much worse in a few weeks time. He will suffer difficulty in swallowing, a rising fever with symptoms of appendicitis, and may actually require an operation to repair the colon. Eventually complete digestive failure will set in. Feeding via IV will become necessary to prevent death by starvation."

"This is the third patient I've seen with these symptoms," Tezuka said, "However the other two have not yet deteriorated as far as you described."

"The rate at which the illness progresses does vary depending on the age and initial health of the patient," Dr. Black Jack said. "and there may be other factors involved as well. The individuals that came to me were also much further along when I first saw them than your patients."

"Do you have any ideas?" Tezuka asked.

"I have some theories." Black Jack replied. He tore a blank page from the back of the patient's chart and pulled a pen from his shirt pocket. Kuro quickly wrote some notes on the page and handed it to Dr. Tezuka.

"You have the advantage over me in having the resources of this hospital at your disposal," he said. "Run the tests on your patients that I have listed here and we may yet home in on the root cause of this affliction."

"Hmm, one of these tests will require the facilities over at the Ministry of Science," Tezuka said.

"Yes, they do have access to a large genome database," Black Jack agreed.

"I'll contact Professor Ochanomizu and ask him to set that one up," Tezuka agreed.

* * *

 **Atom** was greeted at the door by the usual palace guards. They admitted him on sight, and didn't even offer to escort him upstairs to the family quarters, he knew the way and was treated as if he was part of the family. Hisahito was standing with a smile on his face at the upstairs landing. The boy pointed to his watch, "Right on time, as usual!" he laughed. "Are you prepared for a proper pounding?"

"I might not let you beat me so easily today," Atom told the boy, "Let's see if you've studied your mid game move strategy, shall we, Hisahito-Kun?"

"I've done that," the boy said. "Father bought me some books on Shogi strategy, and I've been studying them."

"Looks like I'd better be alert then," Atom said as the two of them entered the game room. "I see you already have the board set up." Atom said.

"Of course!" Hisahito said, "I didn't want to waste any of your time."

Ever since they had been formally introduced at a function at the Ministry of Science that the Emperor had attended with his extended family, Atom and the prince's son had been meeting every other week for a game of Shogi. The Emperor's grandson and the boy robot looked to be physically about the same age by their height and build. To watch the two of them interact, one would be hard pressed to imagine that one of them was of royal blood, and the other a super robot with enough advanced weaponry to take on a small army.

Despite his insistence that he'd been studying the finer points of the game, Atom noticed that his opponent was not quite up to his usual concentration of the game. After actually trying to allow the boy to gain an advantage several times, Atom soon found himself several pieces up, and only a few moves away from victory.

"What's troubling you?" Atom asked. "You're playing like you have no heart in the game."

"You noticed?" Hisahito said. "It's grandfather. He tried to keep it a secret from me, but I overheard him talking on the phone. He's being pressured against making a public decree that he deeply believes in. It troubles him greatly because he wants to do the right thing, and not what the members of the Diet have voted on."

Atom could read the stress in his friends face. He knew that the Emperor was merely a figure head, but he was also highly respected by the nation and could yield much political weight. Atom also knew that the Diet members were often backed by wealthy giants of industry who used donations toward election war chests as a means of influencing their votes. "What is it that the Emperor is being persuaded not to endorse?" Atom asked.

"Well just as the Pope came out and made a statement against global warming, grandfather wanted to express his views to the nation." the boy said. "Several important members of the Diet are trying to convince him not to do this, they don't even want the Emperor to acknowledge that global warming even exists. In fact, he heard that the Diet is going to vote on an ordnance that would ban any mention of the fact in public debate. He thinks that the Tokugawa and Koike corporations are behind this, they don't want anything to hurt their market for fossil fuels."

"You know I was just in the middle of that typhoon over the southern part of the country," Atom said. "That was quite a storm, and I've heard that if this global warming is real we could see a lot more such storms. I agree with your grandfather, he needs to stand up to those would deny the obvious and put the nation in danger."

"I will tell him that," Hisahito nodded.

* * *

 **A** mile from the slope of Mt. Fuji the U.S. Geological survey team along with two members of the Japanese Ministry of Science were planting instruments to study the mountain. The extinct volcano had been making signs of coming back to life during the last few years, and there was growing concern that it might erupt in the not too distant future.

Professor Ochanomizu wiped his brow with the large handkerchief that he had wrapped around his neck to absorb sweat. It was a bright sunny day and the temperature had been slowly climbing all morning. Reno carried several long stakes with seismometers to be implanted in the ground at regular intervals. The two American members of the party had just finished setting up a tilt-meter and had gotten the satellite uplink working. Suddenly the four of them stopped in their tracks as a strange feeling came over them.

"Did you feel that, Hakase?" Reno asked.

"I think so, what was that?" The professor asked.

"That's the fourth tremor I've felt in the past two days," Roger Wilson of the American team replied. "We know there is a fault line that runs near the mountain, it's not at all uncommon to find volcanoes near fault lines since it's though these cracks in the crust that magma reaches the surface. This section of the fault line is too far from the volcano to actually be part of the magma chamber so any seismic vibrations we are feeling are movements in the fault not related to any magma movement."

"Well Japan does experience earthquakes from time to time," Ochanomizu said.

"True, but this part of the fault line has been fairly stable for some time," Frank Drake said. The second of the two American scientists pulled an iPad from his backpack and brought up a spreadsheet page and showed it too the Professor. "This database shows seismic activity recorded in this part of Japan over a twenty year period. You can see a cluster of readings under the mountain increasing in activity over the past few years. The area surrounding the mountain has recordings that are mostly echoes from the events at Fuji, and very few unrelated shocks."

Frank paged through the document and then pointed to another graph. "Here you can see a very recent increase in activity during the past month," he said. "There are no corresponding readings from near the volcano itself, and if you follow the fault away from the mountain we have a very curious observation, note where the epicenter is."

The professor watched as Frank zoomed out the corresponding map. "The epicenter of this recent activity is in a flat plane that has been very quiet earthquake wise for over a century. It's only in the past few months that anything of any significance has been recorded."

Reno looked at the tablet computer and scratched his head. "I think I might have seen something in my recent web searches about that area," he said. "I'll have to double check my notes when we get back to the Ministry."

Reno remembered the various documents that had been downloaded to his computer by the mysterious hacker a few days ago. Several geological surveys with the name of the petrol-engineering arm of Tokugawa industries, and the Koike corporation had been among the mix. Reno was certain that a map included in those surveys matched up with the one on Frank Drake's iPad.

* * *

 **Rock Holmes** rubbed a good quantity of the greasy jell into his hair with his hands and then rinsed them under the running water in the sink. He looked at himself in the mirror through his mirrored sunglasses as he brushed and combed his hair. It took him a good ten minutes to get every strand of hair to lay just the way he wanted them to. Finally satisfied with the look he'd achieved, Rock then applied a top coat of hair spray to lock his hairdo in place.

He walked over to the window from where he could see the band shell in the park across the street from his hotel room. The sun was just beginning to set and the outdoor lighting had begun to come on, the blue glow of the mercury in the high pressure metal vapor arc lamps had just started to pre-heat the high powered bulbs. In twenty minutes of so they would be at full intensity.

A small crowd had already begun to gather for the evenings assembly. Rock walked over to the desk and picked up the written copy of the speech he'd be giving to the assembled mob. During the past year his followers had grown in number. It didn't take very much to convince some people to be attracted to his cause. Every time the weather seemed just a bit hotter than normal for the time of year, whenever there was a disaster linked to a corporate greed that favored profits over safety, more followers would join his flock. Rock knew how to stoke his audience, and he had plenty of facts to throw out at them, such as how Moonsunfu was poisoning them with their GMO'ed grain and their chemical fertilizers, weedicides and insecticides. Or how the Koike corporation's chemical and paper factories had been dumping tons of toxic waste into the environment, and that clusters of cancers were now common in the people living next to those factories. The fact that the Koikes had been indicted on pollution charges and were let off with just a slap on the wrist by judges who had accepted huge donations for their election campaigns from the Koikes, only made the facts even more inflammatory. It would be a productive evening.

In the beginning he'd also tried to take advantage of the fear of technology, especially the fear of advanced robots as a means of attracting new converts to his causes. Then Rock realized that A.I. robots were actually an asset, not a foe. For one thing, their simpler minds were easier to turn to his side than the complex psyche of the human brain, especially with the help of the former head of the ministry of science.

Of course robots had this blind allegiance against causing harm to humans, even the few of them that had the Omega factor logic in place of the purer Kokoro would stop short of doing actual violence. It all came down to the three laws set in place early in the development of robot A.I., the Asimov laws as they were called. The basic governor that was part of all robots electronic brains had the Asimov-3 circuitry hard wired. A robot would sooner self destruct than kill, though it might allow a human to die if it had to chose and protect others. In such a case the end result would be a very badly disturbed robot that would require the equivalent of psycho analysis before it would be useful again.

But it was pointed out to Rock that the Asimov-3 logic had a logical extension, one that was even stronger than any of the three principal laws they controlled. The Zeroth law elevated humanity as a whole above any single individual. This 'zeroth commandment', as Rock decided to call it would allow any robot to take any action necessary in the cause of the preservation of the planet and the human race as a whole.

Of course implementing and packaging this AI extension and finding a means of 'infecting' chosen robots with it had required talents that even Rock with his hacking skills did not possess. Fortunately the greatest roboticist in the world seemed to see eye to eye with himself and had compatible goals. It was an uneasy partnership, but so far it seemed to be working out. Now if some mild violence, or destruction of property was required, the robots that Rock had enlisted in his cause would blindly follow his orders.

The number of important robots that he'd managed to install the Zeroth commandment into was growing. Many of them were in high profile places, waiting only for Rock's command to do their duty. There was Delta, the leader of the robotic police forces, right under Tawashi's nose. Harley the rocket ball start, who was worshiped by humans and robots alike was a recent convert. Then there was Atlas, the youthful troublemaker with his Omega factor A.I. Soon he'd also have the means of controlling those private security 'bots that the large corporations were using to keep protesters off of their property. Yes, robots could be useful to the 'Gospel's' cause.

Rock adjusted his tie and then removed his suit jacket from the hanger in the closet. He slipped it on, putting his left arm into its sleeve first. As he took a final look at himself in the mirror his doorbell rang. Rock looked though the peep hole and saw Atlas standing there.

The renegade robot was currently in his Daichi mode in which he appeared as the clone of IeyasuTokugawa's late son. Of course whenever Atlas went off in one of his tirades causing damage and havoc, he'd first morph into his 'destruction robot' persona. His Daichi mode was the more presentable one, the look that Rock preferred him to have in public during his appearance before the gathering crowds of curious possible new followers. When the actual intimidation work needed to be done, and that would be soon, the red and blue warrior Atlas would earn its keep.

"Right on time," Rock said, nodding at Dachi. "Ready to dish out the kool-aide for the faithful?"

"As usual." Atlas said. "How did it go with Astro's best buddy?"

"I think I've managed to plant the necessary seeds in Reno's mind," Rock said. "I've been watching his activities on the web, and he's looking under most of the right rocks right now. It won't be long before we're ready to reel him in."

"Good, then I can bring Astro into the fold."

"I wouldn't rush that," Rock said. "Atom's A.I. is Kokoro in perfection. He doesn't suffer from the faults that your Omega Factor has. I'm going to have to remove that from your system eventually, but for right now it's serving my purposes."

"I rather like my electronic brain the way it is," Atlas said sternly, "I don't think I'm going to let you touch it."

"We'll see about that," Rock answered, "for now let's just concentrate on the job at hand. Did you invite your fire fighter friends?"

"Yes most of the Metro City robot fire force that are not on duty tonight will be present in the crowd," Atlas replied. "We'll give them the Zeroth Commandment and they will see the light."

"Excellent!" Rock smiled, looking out the window. "Well it seems our flock is waiting, let's not disappoint them."

Rock opened the door to his hotel room and motioned for Atlas to lead the way. The two of them left the room and headed towards the elevator.

* * *

 **Inspector Tawashi** had his uniformed officers stationed at the outskirts of the park, just out of view from the crowd gathering at the band shell. This was the third gathering of the group going by the name of "The Fiery Gospel". The group had managed to get an injunction against the police department from having any of their officers within 1000 feet of their meetings, which had been peaceful without any reports of property damage or uncivil conduct. Even the sanitation department had no complaints, the park had been left quite clean without the usual amount of litter found after many of the rock concerts that had been hosted at the band shell. Still, the inspector insisted on stationing a small squadron of his men at the park, 'just in case'. The police commissioner gave the inspector the go ahead for his stakeouts, but he warned him that he must obey the injunction and keep his men out of sight unless there was a report of trouble.

Tawashi figured that the best compromise was to put a few of his best men inside the meeting, undercover. Despite his distrust for robots in general, Tawashi realized that the best option for getting someone inside the meetings to spy on them without compromising the spirit of the injunction was to put a robot officer inside. The inspector had high regards for Delta, the commander of the robotic police insurgence force had never given him any real reason to distrust him.

 **Delta** found himself torn between his loyalty to the the force, and his newly found binding to the principles of the Zeroth command. Although he hadn't been sworn to secrecy by the 'Gospel', he did feel he might be betraying the order by recording what was going on during the meeting and turning the tapes over to Tawashi. Of course the police could always obtain what they wanted using any one of many available electronic surveillance means without his help. Besides, he could always be selective what he recorded, keeping anything truly damaging to the order off of his report. In a way Delta was relieved to have been asked to attend the meeting undercover. Had the assignment not been given to him he might have had to find an excuse to not report for duty that night, or worse, have to answer to Rock for not being in attendance for the orders conclave. It was a lucky break for the commander of the insurgence force.

* * *

 **It** was getting dark by the time Reno and the professor had gotten back to the Ministry from their afternoon field work. Ochanomizu quickly finished putting his equipment away and left for the day. Reno indicated to him that he'd be right behind him and would lock up the place on his way out. The boy plugged his iPad into the workstation in his office to download the data he'd collected. That's when he noticed an email with an encrypted attachment. The sender's identity was simply "the Gospel", but Reno knew the message had probably come from Rock. With his curiosity piqued he opened the email after running it through the computers malware filters.

The attachment appeared to be an invitation to some sort of 'revival' meeting at the park band shell that evening. The group calling itself 'The Fiery Gospel' was advertising itself as some sort of Gaia centric organization dedicated to preserving the Earth. Reno looked at the time and saw that if he hurried he could make it with minutes to spare.

By the time he parked his electric trike outside the entrance to the park he could see the bright lights inside illuminating the band shell area. A huge crowd was already present and someone was speaking over a PA system. Reno presented the invitation that he'd printed out from the email and walked towards the edge of where the crowd was gathered. There up on the raised stage was a man in a gold and silver sequined suit. His mirrored sunglasses hid his eyes from the crowd, but Reno immediately recognized him as Rock Holmes. Reno reached into his pocket for his cell phone. He selected the voice recorder application, and then stood there in the crowd for over an hour recording Rock's preaching to his choir.

Most of the contents of Rock's sermon echoed the research he'd been doing on his own. He mentioned other things too that Reno decided he'd research later on, but by now he realized that every fact that Rock had claimed could be proven with enough surfing and hacking. The list of sins committed by Tokugawa, Moonsunfu and the Koikes against mankind was growing. Other corporations were also to blame for the mess that the planet was it, that was certain, but the big three that Rock seemed to be concentrating on were the worst of the lot.


	4. Chapter 4

**A Fiery Gospel**

 _The Gospel_

 **Professor** Ochanomizu preferred to type his own reports rather than dictate them. Most of the younger members of his staff at the Ministry of Science felt comfortable using the voice recognition features of their computers to write their reports, and yuko his assistant often kidded him about it. "Well, I'm not the only one who prefers the old fashioned way," the professor said, "I've never seen Reno giving dictation to his computer."

"Hackers," yuko said, "They're just as reactionary as you old farts are."

Hiroshi looked over his notes that he'd made out in the field. The seismometers he and Reno had planted out along the fault line from the mountain had been sending a steady stream of data indicating a constant back and forth slippage, almost as if something had lubricated it. While this did relieve the possibility of a very violent earthquake because it limited the buildup of the tremendous forces at those points in the fault line, it also magnified the length of the movements elsewhere. The professor realized that they'd have to plant more instruments to get a better picture of what was going on.

He then paged though his emails and found the request from the Metro City hospital for some genome studies on patient blood and tissue samples. The request came from Dr. Tezuka, and also had some notes from a Dr. Black Jack. He saw that yuko had already approved the request while he was out in the field and that the medical department had already received the samples and were analyzing it. "Tezuka must be fearing some kind of widespread outbreak if he called in Black Jack and asked the Ministry to do some research," he thought to himself.

* * *

 **Reno** knocked on the professor's door before entering his office. Ochanomizu looked up when he saw the boy and pointed to the clock, "What time did you leave last night?" he asked.

"Oh I left shortly after you did, Hakase." Reno answered, "I only stayed long enough to download my tablet and read some emails. I did end up at the park band shell though, I had gotten an email from some environmental action group called "the Fiery Gospel", and I went to check it out.

"So you were there, weren't you?", came a voice from behind the boy.

Reno turned around quickly to see Inspector Tawashi standing in the doorway of the professor's office.

"What brings you round to the Ministry, Inspector?" Ochanomizu asked. "Looking to blame something on Atom again?"

"Well now that you mention it, where is that pesky robot?" Tawashi asked with a laugh.

"I haven't seen him yet today," the professor replied, "I do know that he's been taking it easy after his rescue work during the typhoon, and yesterday was his usual visit to the palace to spend some quality time with the emperor's grandson."

"That's good to know," Tawashi said, "looks like he's been keeping his nose clean. No I came over to ask Reno about what he knows about this Fiery Gospel organization. My men spotted him at their rally last night while we were staking out the group. I'd like to know what he was doing there."

"If you're interested in this 'Fiery Gospel group," Reno replied, "I have a recording I made of Rock Holmes speaking there last night. I had received an invitation from them via email after Rock or another one of their members hacked into my computer to send me some files. I was curious what they were all about, so I took them up on their invitation."

"I've already got all that during our stakeout." Tawashi replied, "We got some good intel on who was there, including all of the robots in attendance. I didn't spot Astro there, I was worried he'd be mixed up in the group. That troublemaker Atlas was right by Rock's side."

"I didn't notice him," Reno said.

"Well he was in his Daichi attire," Tawashi said. "Which was a relief because he never causes any real destruction unless he's in that battle bot mode."

"Now that we've cleared that up," Ochanomizu laughed "You wouldn't have come into my office unless you had a favor to ask."

The inspector fidgeted for a moment before speaking. "I need to get someone inside of that group to find out what they are up to. Bugging their recruitment revival meetings isn't going to get us the intel we want, we need someone inside. I'm afraid that Delta has been converted to their cause, or at least been compromised. I have this feeling that they are doing something to the robots of this city, and I fear that we will have a robot rebellion as soon as Rock pulls the switch. I can't use any of my men, they'd be too easy to spot. I need someone outside of the force, someone with a scientist's background that might be seen as sympathetic to their cause. You have anyone in mind, professor?"

"How about me?" Reno asked.

"You?" Tawashi asked. He scratched his chin for a moment before continuing, "Yeah, that might work. You do project the right image of a rebellious teenager. 'Course I'd also like to have a robot on the inside, one that I wouldn't have to worry about being corrupted."

"What about Delta?" The professor asked.

"No, I already told you I think he's been turned by the group. I had sent him to be part of the crowd last night and keep track of all the other robots present. His report back to me looked like he'd edited out everything of any use, it was too bland."

"Delta's A.I. is very one way loyal," Ochanomizu said. "It would take quite an expert in robotic A.I. to convert him."

"In that case Dr. Tenma could be involved." Tawashi blurted out.

"Tenma is still locked up in that mental hospital" Reno replied.

"Yes, as far as I know he still is," Tawashi replied, "But I've heard rumors that he's been involved in something, that he has some connections from inside that hospital."

"Atom told me that he thought it possible that Dr. Tenma might have been given limited access to a computer as a reward for good behavior." Reno replied.

"That's disturbing to me because Tenma is quite a hacker himself," Tawashi said.

"I think Atom might be able to help you out if you need a robot on the inside," Ochanomizu suggested. "His A.I. is flexible, but he's deeply rooted in his principles and not easily corrupted."

"I don't know about that!" the inspector said, grinding his foot on the floor.

"Come on inspector, you've used Atom undercover before." Ochanomizu said. "There was that Yellow Horse ring he broke up for you, and he's gone abroad on spy missions for the government several times."

"You're right, of course." Tawashi said. "Well let's first wait and see what Reno can come up with."

"You sure you want to do this son," Ochanomizu asked. "It might be dangerous you know."

"Rock has already reached out to me, anyway." Reno said. "I think he trusts me, so it would be easy to go along with his advances."

"I hate to say this, but you're probably right." Ochanomizu agreed. "Go ahead and make contact with this 'Gospel' group, but please be careful!"

"Hai!," Reno agreed.

* * *

 **Reno** wasn't quite too sure how he was going to make contact with the 'Fiery Gospel' cult, but he needn't have worried for as soon as he got back to his laboratory office area he found an email waiting for him. He scanned the encrypted attachment with his malware screening software and found nothing obvious. The attachment contained a video file which started playing as soon as it was opened.

He recognized Rock Holmes face at once, despite the mirrored sunglasses, beret and fake mustache. "Hello Reno," Rock said in a voice that had a slight electronic alteration. "By now you've probably followed up on all those links and messages I've downloaded onto your computers, I hope you now realize why I contacted you. I know you were at the little rally we had last night at the park band shell, I was certain you'd come if I invited you. If you listened to my little speech you know what our group stands for, but you may not realize the urgency of our cause. If you've followed the leads I've sent you so far you probably suspect that things are not right in this world, now it's time you learned the full ugly truth. I'll send a car for you this evening at 7 pm. If you want to learn more be outside your apartment building at that time. If you are not there by 7:05, I'll assume you are not interested. You have until this evening to make up your mind. I'll see you later in person. Oh and don't think of sending this video to that flat foot inspector Tawashi, because it will be deleted from your computer as soon as it ends. Goodbye!"

Reno quickly did a memory scan on his in-box, sure enough the email and the attachment were gone.

* * *

 **Professor** Ochanomizu sat in the Ministry cafeteria contemplating his lunch. Yuko had instructed the food service 'bots to put her boss on a diet until he lost some weight. Hiroshi glumly picked at the contents of the Bento box with his chopsticks. The half ration of green tea over rice was topped with various vegetables and fish. A single sushi roll sat in its own divided portion of the tray. A bowl of weak onion soup, a Chinese fortune cookie, and a cup of green tea competed the lunch. The professor had almost finished his soup when he noticed the three individuals who had just entered the cafeteria and were walking towards him.

"Kon'nichiwa, Tezuka Sensei, Black Jack Sensei, Flask Sensei," the professor smiled. "What brings you over here at this hour?"

Dr. Flask, the head of the medical laboratory motioned for his two guests to take seats at the table across from Ochanomizu, while he took the seat to the man's right.

"Sorry to disturb your lunch Hakase," Dr. Flask said. "I finished my preliminary run on the samples that were overnighted to the laboratory from Metro City general and I faxed the findings on over to Dr. Tezuka a few hours ago. I was about to come down to have lunch myself when Dr. Tezuka and Dr. Black Jack suddenly appeared in my office."

"We thought you should know what was in that report," Tezuka said handing the professor a computer printout.

Ochanomizu pushed his tray to his left and leaned the pile of papers on the edge of the table as he quickly scanned through it. "Do you see the connection, Hakase?" Kuro asked.

"I'm not sure exactly what I'm looking at yet," Hiroshi replied.

"Let me try an explain it," Dr. Flask said. "I was given tissue and blood samples from three different patients who were suffering from what appeared to be some kind of allergic reaction to something they had ingested over a contracted period of time. The reaction causes shutdown of the digestive processes in the upper and lower colon, without some kind of medical intervention the condition will become fatal once it has progressed. The first symptoms are often acute appendicitis, sometimes accompanied by a bloody stool. Surgery is often required when this happens."

"How do you know that it is caused by a food substance?", Ochanomizu asked.

"We weren't totally certain of that," Black Jack replied, "however none of the patients shared anything in common except for a small portion of their diets. I concluded that it was a sensitivity to something in their diet, I also was working on the assumption that it must be an rare and recessive inherited allergy since there isn't anything unusual in their diet from general population."

"So far this malady has only been seen in a handful of cases," Tezuka added, "But in looking back though my records I may have treated others that were also affected."

"I was asked to run some genetic typing on the patients and some undigested food matter that was removed from their digestive tracts," Flask continued. He leaned over and flipped though the pages of the report, stopping on a page containing a spreadsheet. He then pointed to several items, "You will notice that all three patients had consumed rice and wheat that carry the same genetic markers. None of the patients had any specific recessive genes that might be a associated with certain food allergies I ran a test for various forms of toxins, but found none."

Ochanomizu studied the printout before speaking, "Well then it seems that you still have yet to identify your cause. Is it a food allergy? It's not terribly unheard of for small pockets of the population to have food allergies, especially to milk, peanuts and wheat."

"Show him the last page of the printout," Kuro said.

Dr. Flask turned to the last page of the printout and pointed to two genetic band charts. "Do you see the connection now?"

"These two runs look identical," Hiroshi agreed. "But what are they?"

Black Jack leaned over and pointed to the charts. "These two runs are the genetic footprint of the samples of undigested wheat and rice found in all three of the patients." He then pointed to the second set of data. "And this is the genetic run done on some samples of rice and wheat that I gave to Dr. Flask to analyze."

"Again they are identical, or at least very nearly so." Ochanomizu replied. "I assume that it means something to you for rushing over here so quickly."

"Yes, Ochanomizu – Hakase, it does." Dr. Black Jack replied. "You see those samples that were made from the grain that I gave Dr. Flask are from seeds produced by the Moonsunfu corporation. They are genetically modified organisms engineered to be compatible with the companies Killsemall weedicide. I've also identified addition genes present that enable the plants to produce a toxin that is poisonous to various insects that farmers usually control with conventional insecticides also manufactured by the Moonsunfu corporation."

"I've set up the laboratory to run a sensitive gas chromatography test on the undigested food samples," Dr. Flask added. "It's my guess that I will find traces of the genetic pesticide in those samples, and that the patients had an extremely acute reaction to it. It's also possible that something in the grain associated with the gene that makes it immune to the Killsemall weedicide is also generating the fatal allergic reaction, possibly when the food product was eaten along with some other substance, say fish or other seafood.."

Ochanomizu closed the printout and handed it back to Dr. Tezuka. "Just how much of that GMO grain is being grown here in Japan?" he asked.

"There really isn't any way to tell," Black Jack replied.

"Until Kuro here gave me a sample of the grains to analyze I hadn't ever seen any of it," Dr. Flask interjected.

"I understand This stuff is rather common outside of Japan in countries where Moonsunfu almost has a total monopoly on the farming chemical and seed business," Black Jack continued. "Our government tried to ban the use of GMO seeds until a few years ago, but lobbying funded by Moonsunfu has resulted in a change in regulations. I can understand why the larger farming conglomerates like these seeds, they do give greater yield per acre, require less attention to pest control, and they produce a better looking product. The problem is that their safety in the food chain has not been fully tested."

"Are all of our farmers now using this technology?" The professor asked.

"No, there is still a decreasing number of farms growing organic crops with natural genetic makeups," Black Jack explained.

"I've heard that such farmers farmers usually reserve a portion of their grain product as seed for the next seasons crop," the professor added, "Thus preserving the desirable genetic nature of their plants."

"They do," Kuro agreed. "The problem is that these GMO'ed seeds have their genetic properties engineered as to make these added traits dominate in make up. If one farmer is growing non-GMO grain and his neighbor a few kilos away has planted a GMO'ed crop, the pollinating insects will carry the genetic material from the GMO'ed plants over to the organic farmers field. The result will be grain that is contaminated with the GMO'ed traits. The organically grown grain will no longer be pure, and seeds grown from that crop will be fully GMO'ed. Do you know that Moonsunfu has sued farmers for patent violation when they grew crops containing genes modified by Moonsunfu, even though they never bought any seeds from them?"

"That's horrible!" the professor gasped, "Surly the courts threw those suits out the window."

"I'm afraid not," Dr. Black Jack sighed. "I can give you a list of small farmers who were sued for this and have lost their farms to Moonsunfu and their partner in crime, the Tokugawa corporation.

"You see it's not just a growing problem with an increasing percentage of the population that is becoming sensitive to this modified grain," Dr. Tezuka said, "but more and more of our food crops are becoming man made monsters. We may be in the process of slowly extincting ourselves by tampering with our food supply."

* * *

 **Reno** entered his apartment a little before 6pm after a full day at the Ministry surfing the web. His head was still spinning from the data he'd found. As he opened the door, the smell of pepperoni pizza laced with anchovies and extra garlic assaulted his olfactory nerves. Sitting in his favorite chair in front of his large screen HD television was Atom. "About time you got home!" the boy robot said with a mouth full of pizza.

"You know I don't really appreciate your breaking into my apartment without calling me first," Reno huffed.

"Who broke in?" Atom said, "You're on the 4th floor and you always keep your living room window unlocked."

"Yeah and what do I get," Reno replied, "Flying cat buglers."

"Hey I didn't steal any felines, and I brought Pizza and Pepsi!" Atom chirped back, "Go stuff your face before it gets cold!"

Reno shrugged his shoulders and grabbed a large slice from one of the boxes. "Thanks for the pizza," he laughed. "It does solve one of my problems, that being what to grab for dinner. I'm sorry I snapped at you buddy, but I'm in a bit of a rush and I've got to run in a little under an hour from now. Someone's going to pick me up and I'd rather they not see you."

The look on Atom's face suddenly changed to a very serious one. "Where are you going where I would be in the way?" He asked.

"It's complicated." Reno blurted out, as he unscrewed the top of a liter bottom of Pepsi and chugged down a huge gulp. "I'll explain it all later, but for now just keep out of this, OK?"

"Sure." Atom answered dumbfounded.

Reno finished off another slice of pizza and walked back to his bedroom. He returned to the living room about 15 minutes later having changed his shirt, pants and shoes. Atom also noticed that he'd put some gel in his hair and had carefully combed it.

"Heavy date?" Atom deadpanned.

"No, this is business," Reno replied. He checked his watch and noticed it was now about ten minutes before seven. "You can either stay here and crash for the night till I get back, or you can leave now. Either way don't follow me." Reno opened the door to his apartment and stepped out. Atom heard the lock cylinder in the door turn and his friends footsteps heading for the elevator.

The boy robot got up and made his way into his friend's bedroom to look out the window. The window behind Reno's bed faced the street and offered a view of the main entrance to the apartment building. There was a jet black Mercedes S600 sedan sitting in the street in front of the building with its engine running. As Reno exited the building the automobile's headlights flashed once to get his attention. Atom watched as his friend got into the car and it drove off. For a second, he resigned himself to honoring Reno's request, but something in the back of his electronic brain sensed something amiss. Atom unlatched the window, opened it and stepped outside. He hovered briefly in mid air long enough to close the window and then took off straight up in the air.

"I'll fly high enough to keep out of sight, and just see where he's going," Atom thought to himself.

The car seemed to be wandering aimlessly though the city taking on a course that turned back on itself several times. Finally they entered the expressway and headed out of town and towards the mountains in the distance. The Mercedes turned off the major highway onto a narrow two lane road and entered a tunnel under the mountain. Atom zoomed over to where the road exited the tunnel and waited for the car to appear. It seemed to take forever, as if they had stopped inside the mountain, but finally the automobile reappeared and continued along the road. Nearly an hour later Atom saw the car finally stop at a old temple where a single occupant exited the vehicle and entered the shrine. Atom landed and walked up to the automobile. Except for when it transversed the tunnel, he'd had it in sight for the entire trip. The car was empty. "What the hell?" he thought running towards the old shrine. There was a single person, an old woman who seemed to be meditating. It suddenly dawned on Atom that Reno and his escort must have changed cars inside the tunnel and then back tracked back into the city. "Damn!" he thought to himself.

* * *

 **As** Reno exited his apartment building he noticed a large black sedan flash its headlamps. He walked towards the automobile and the rear curbside door opened for him. "Get inside, please." A female voice asked.

Reno looked around for a second before getting into the automobile. The door closed by itself and locked. The driver didn't turn around to look at him, in fact the rear of the automobile was divided from the front compartment by a thick glass one way mirror. There was an intercom between him and the driver, however. "Please turn off your cell phone and put it in the compartment in the seat back in front of you," the driver asked over the intercom, "It will be returned to you later. Also would you buckle your seat belt, please?"

Reluctantly, Reno complied with the request. 'I guess they don't want anyone tracking me', he thought.

Reno couldn't see much through the heavy tinting on the windows, or through the windshield because of the mirrored divider. There was a soothing music playing over the intercom when his driver didn't have anything to tell him.

"How far are we going?" Reno asked.

"Just sit back and relax." He was told. "Help yourself to refreshment if you like."

Reno then noticed the mini fridge and bar in the spacious compartment he was seated in. He found a thermos carafe containing hot espresso coffee, and from that he poured himself a small cup. From the sound of the road Reno was at least able to determine when they got on the expressway, and off again onto a road leading into the mountains. The automobile slowed and came to a stop, and the door on his right side opened. "Get out now, please." His driver instructed.

Reno stepped out of the car and found himself inside of a tunnel. There was a small Jeep 4x4 with its engine idling a few feet behind the Mercedes on the other side of the road. Rock Holmes was sitting in the driver's seat, the lamps of the tunnel reflecting off his mirrored glasses. "Get in." he motioned to Reno.

Reno climbed into the front seat next to Holmes. "Why the switch?", he asked.

"I wanted to make sure we weren't followed," Rock replied. "I hope you enjoyed the ride, that automobile cost me quite a bit of Yen." He pushed a CD into the dashboard mounted player and turned up the volume. As Steppenwolf's "Magic Carpet Ride" blared out of the six speaker stereo they drove back into the city and stopped at a hotel not far from the park where Reno had been just a few nights ago. Rock parked his Jeep in the hotel's basement garage and escorted his guest up to his penthouse suite.

"Make yourself at home, Reno," he said, and then called towards the back of the suite, "Would you mind getting our guest some refreshment?"

"I'm not your butler!" the robot said in a huff as he entered the room. Reno turned around and looked up to see Atlas in his Daichi mode, hands on his hips. "Never mind," he said, "for him I'll be nice."

Daichi walked into the kitchen area and returned a few minutes later with a tray containing two glasses, a cold carafe of a wine cooler, and various pastries.

"Arigatō," Reno replied with a nod of his head.

"This one has manors," Daichi said, "As well as common sense, something rare in flesh bags."

"What about me?" Rock asked.

"You're just as arrogant as everyone says I am," Daichi laughed, "but you understand the issues."

"Perhaps I enlightened you to them?" Rock countered.

"No, but you did make me realize that I was not only right," Atlas replied, "But that things had gotten far worse than I could ever imagine."

"I don't understand." Reno injected.

"I assume you've looked at the data that I sent links to on your computer?" Rock smiled. "Of course you've only seen the tip of the iceberg, now let me show you what lies underneath."

Rock pulled his iPhone from his pocket and used it as a remote control for the large screen display hanging on the wall. "I'm going to show you some pictures, videos, and data I've hacked from computer storage inside of Tokugawa industries, the Moonsunfu corporation, and the Koike corporations, as well as various government agencies. All of these sources have done their best to keep this information from public eyes, but they can't hide their dirty underwear from me. Once you know what my followers and I do, I think you will join our cause. We need someone inside of the Ministry of Science if we are to succeed."

"Just what are your plans?" Reno asked.

"We are a mostly non violent group," Rock said, "to the extent that we will not cause any physical harm to anyone. However," Rock turned and glanced at Atlas, "We will take whatever actions are required, including as a little sabotage."

For the next few hours Rock gave Reno a detailed presentation of every issue that his group was fighting and the corporations that were responsible for them. Most of the details seemed to center around the Tokugawa, Moonsunfu, and Koike corporations. All three were guilty of massive releases of toxic chemical wastes that were associated with illnesses and cancer clusters in populations of people living next to the factories. He learned how the Tokugawa corporation had been buying up local family owned organic farms and converting them to factories using the chemical fertilizers, weedicides and insecticides, along with GMO'ed seeds from the Moonsunfu corporation, all of which had no proven track record for safety. Finally Rock revealed the secret about Tokugawa's experimental oil field due east of Mt. Fuji and the hydraulic fracking process of the Koike corporation that would be used to extract the oil and gas. Rock explained how the process was suspected of causing earthquakes and pollution of underground water sources. Reno had already seen some of this information on line thanks to the links Rock had already provided him. Now he saw just how bad all of this was.

* * *

 **The** Suntō district in the Shizuoka Prefecture is mostly rural with several small towns and villages. Its inhabitants have a good view of Mt. Fuji to west. For the past few weeks several convoys of large trucks of the Tokugawa corporation carrying heavy equipment had been passing though the district en route to a location near Kofuji. The residents of Kamitakatsuaka, a small farming village on the southern border of the district, noted the unusual traffic but had little incentive to pay any attention to it. That however changed suddenly in a drastic manor.

* * *

 **Ochanomizu** Hiroshi was sitting in his favorite chair in front of the television watching the 9 PM evening newscast as Atom entered the house. It was obvious that there was something he wanted to say to his guardian when he walked in, but he kept quiet as he saw Hiroshi's concentration was fixed on the newscast.

 _'In our continuing story about the strange events coming from the village of Kamitakatsuaka in the Suntō district things have taken a turn for the even more bizarre,'_ the reporter narrated. _'Over the past week residents began experiencing minor earthquakes at almost all hours of the day. Livestock have been spooked, cows have been off their milk, and poultry have stopped laying eggs. The residents also have been reporting strange smells coming from their wells. Just yesterday several fires have erupted in the homes, and it was determined that the cause was methane gas dissolved in the water._

 _In other news, protesters earlier this week again gathered outside of the Tokugawa corporation's Tokyo headquarters with signs and verbal outcries demanding the company come clean on their responsibility contributing to global warning, citing the recent typhoon as an example. It was a peaceful demonstration until the private robot police hired by the company forcibly dispersed the crowd. A spokesperson for the group calling themselves the 'Fiery Gospel', said they would return.'_

Ochanomizu noticed Atom standing next to him. "Oh I'm sorry son, I didn't notice you come in." he said, "I guess I was too absorbed in the news. You know I just read a report about what's going on in that village late this afternoon. We may need to send a team over there to investigate. I think those fires may be linked to the seismic activity Reno and I noticed on the slope of Mt. Fuji last week while we were with the U.S. Geological survey team." The professor then added, "Sumimasen, was there something you wanted to tell me?"

"I brought some pizza and Pepsi over to Reno's place awhile ago thinking he'd like me to crash with him after work. He seemed a little annoyed, and even accused me of breaking into his place, even though he always leaves a window open for me." Atom answered, "Anyway after he apologized for the outburst he explained that he had somewhere to go and asked me not to follow him."

"So naturally, you did," Ochanomizu returned.

"Yeah I guess I did," Atom said with his gaze averted downward. "There was a large expensive automobile waiting for Reno in the street. He got into it and it headed out of the city. I lost them inside of a tunnel in the mountains. I think they switched cars on me and headed back to Metro City. I'm worried about him."

"It would seem that the Fiery Gospel doesn't want you knowing about their operation," the professor remarked, scratching his chin.

"Who or what is this Fiery Gospel?" Atom asked.

"Earlier today inspector Tawashi came over to my office to speak with Reno and myself," Ochanomizu explained. "The inspector wanted to get someone on the inside to find out more about this group. So far all he knows about them is that they are politically involved in environmental issues. They don't seem to be promoting violence or civil unrest, but that Tawashi is concerned that could change, especially since they seem to have many prominent robots involved in their cause, including one that you are familiar with."

"Atlas?" Atom voiced.

"Yes, he was spotted at one of their rallies very recently, though he was in his Daichi mode at the time," the professor acknowledged. "Reno volunteered to help the police, since it seems that the group has been reaching out to him over the internet over the past week. I wouldn't worry about him, he can take care of himself. Didn't you try tracking him via his cell phone?"

"I didn't think of that until I lost sight of him when they switched cars," Atom said, "and when I did I couldn't find him. They must have taken his phone from him."

"That is a bit concerning," the professor thought out loud, "but not entirely unexpected. If neither of us hears from the boy in a few more hours I'll notify Tawashi, but I still don't think he's in any danger."

* * *

 **Atom** looked up at the wall clock in the living room again. His guardian had noticed his behavior and would have laughed about it if he wasn't as worried about Reno as Atom was. Still, it did seem strange for a robot to keep checking the time by watching a clock, Atom's electronic brain had a built in clock that was far more accurate than any battery operated drugstore time piece.

The hour had reached 11 PM, and the professor was about to make good on his promise to call Inspector Tawashi when the phone rang. Atom beat the professor to the phone, almost yanking the base off of the wall to grab the hand piece. "Moshi Moshi!" Atom spoke loudly into the phone.

"Hello to you too, Atom," Reno replied. "I kinda thought you and Ochanomizu Hakase might be worried about me so I figured I'd better give you a quick call and let you know I'm still alive."

"Konbanwa, Reno," the professor said, having picked up another extension in the his office. "How did it go?"

"I'll talk about it with you tomorrow at the Ministry, Hakase," Reno answered. "Rock gave me quite an eyeful and an earful as well. I suspect you probably might be aware of most of the data he gave me, and if you are you have some explaining to do."

"So Rock is involved with this 'Fiery Gospel' group?" Atom asked from the kitchen extension, "How is Atlas involved in all of this?" He added.

"Yes, Rock is the head of the organization," Reno said in a stressed voice. "I'm still not exactly sure just how Atlas is involved though. I think he's just a cultist that just gets attracted to any conspiracy theory out there. Of course this is more than just a theory, and the conspiracy seems real to me at this point. Anyway you guys, I'm tired and I'm going to bed. Konbanwa and I'm going to hang up."

"OK son, get a good night's rest and I'll see you in the morning." Ochanomizu said, hanging up the phone.

Atom heard Reno close the connection at his end and he put the telephone receiver back on the wall base.

"From the sound of his voice I think he was holding back something he knows about Atlas's involvement with this group," Atom said.

"Maybe," the professor said, "But I also think he doesn't want you to get involved. At this point I can't say that I blame him. Inspector Tawashi will probably be over at the Ministry tomorrow to debrief Reno. I don't think they want you to be there, and I don't want you to get involved, but maybe you should listen in discreetly out of sight from a distance."

"Hai," Atom said nodding in agreement.

* * *

 **It** was about 10 o'clock the next morning when Inspector Tawashi and police chief Nakaruma were escorted into Ochanomizu's office by Yuko Kisagari. The professor IM'ed Reno over the computer to come upstairs from his laboratory office and meet him in the conference room. When the four of them entered the meeting room, Atom was already waiting in the janitor's closet next door where he could hear everything by cranking his ears up to 1000 times gain.

"I'd like to thank you for helping us our, Reno." Chief Nakaruma said shaking Reno's hand. "There have been several protest demonstrations outside of several corporate headquarters and government buildings in the past few weeks, all of them organized by this 'Fiery Gospel' group. So far nobodies been hurt, but the crowds are growing."

"I've heard about that," Ochanomizu replied, "the one outside Tokugawa corporation was on last night's newscast."

"That's why we need some inside information," Tawashi said. "I understand you've meet with Rock Holmes the alleged head of that organization yesterday, Reno. Did you learn anything?"

"As to their immediate plans, no," Reno replied, "Although Rock did hint that their protests could get a little more 'heated'. He also showed me a ton of information that could have many people arrested and have the public clamor for quite a few in the government be thrown out of office if only a small part of it were to be made public. A lot of the stuff was obtained by illegal means, hacking into computers at all levels of the government and private industry, as well as quite a bit of emails."

"Do you have specifics on how that information was obtained, and by whom?" Tawashi asked. "I'll have them arrested on computer crime charges."

"Nothing that would stand up in court." Reno replied, he certainly wasn't going to admit to the police that he'd done a fair amount of hacking for information himself. "Even if I did have such evidence I wouldn't turn it over to you. If even only half of what I've seen is true, it was enough to make me think that the facts should become public knowledge." Reno turned and looked Ochanomizu in the face. "Remember what I told you on the phone last night, Hakase?"

The professor nodded.

"Well then, did you know that the Ministry has been gathering data that proves the connection between global warming and the production of green house gases produced by the consumption of fossil fuels? I've seen evidence that those studies were suppressed by the Ministry under government order by officials whose election campaigns were funded by Tokugawa industries."

Ochanomizu waited a few moments before he answered. "The concept of greenhouse gas release into the atmosphere causing climate change has been suspected for decades," he replied. "Of course the Ministry did some studies, but I wouldn't call the results concrete absolute proof. Certainly they removed any doubt in my own mind. As for suppressing the results, that's poppy cock!"

"Really?" Reno said. "Rock showed me several memos that you exchanged with the Prime minister, and the majority leader of the Diet. At first you were urging them to introduce legislation to limit our countries import and production of various fossil fuels and for funds to start a crash program to develop renewable sources of energy. You threatened to go public with some of the information from those studies that showed just how close the world was to a tipping point where climate change would be locked into a spiraling feedback loop, your words! But in the end you caved in and agreed to the Ministry doing research on 'cleaner' use of fossil fuels as an 'interim measure'. You sold out, Hakase! Why?"

"That isn't true, Reno." Ochanomizu replied. "I'm certain that you were shown only part of my correspondence in those matters. Rock wanted to inflame you against those in charge, that's how these radical fringe groups operate."

"Perhaps," Reno replied. "But there is more, much more. Did you know that Tokugawa's energy arm has requested approval for several test wells for the production of oil and gas just east of Mt. Fuji? They are using hydraulic fracking equipment developed by the Koike conglomerate, and I wouldn't be surprised if they haven't got all of the necessary permits for that. Those earthquakes we were experiencing last week working with the U.S. Geological survey team, and contamination of drinking water wells that was on the news were caused by that processes of gas and oil extraction."

"Again son you're jumping to conclusions based on partial data." The professor replied. "There still isn't scientific proof of the connection between the extraction of petroleum from deep under ground using hydraulic fracking and earthquakes. I agree there is some concern that the chemicals being used might leach into ground water and on that count alone permits for such wells should be carefully considered before being granted."

"Ha!" Reno laughed, "I've seen the paperwork on Tokugawa's application for a drilling permit. It was railroaded though following a huge bribe banked rolled by him and the Koikes."

"You've got proof of that son?" Chief Nakaruma asked.

"I've seen the proof, but I wasn't allowed to make any copies." Reno replied. "Rock trusts me, but not to that extent, at least not yet."

There was a moment of silence before Reno continued. "Rock showed me something else, something even scarier than the data on climate change, and that was bad enough."

"What would that be?" Tawashi asked.

"Rock had quite a bit of information on the spread of GMO'ed food production, and the effects it may be having on people." he replied.

"That I'm aware of." the professor said. "A few days ago I had a meeting with the head of the Ministry' At the request of my good friend Dr. Tezuka at Metro City hospital we ran some tests samples taken from several very ill patients. A doctor Black Jack was also present at our meeting."

"That quack?" Tawashi blurted out. "You should have called me, I'd have him arrested for practicing medicine without a license."

"Now, now, inspector," the police chief said, "Black Jack is a very capable practitioner. His license was revoked only because he wouldn't allow a patient of his to die by refusing to use an unapproved treatment when nothing else known would work."

Ochanomizu gave Tawashi the evil eye stare and continued. "The results of the laboratory work that we did, along with additional information provided by Dr. Black Jack proved that a new toxin has been released into our food chain by GMO'ed seed manufactured by the Moonsunfu corporation. It is this toxin that is causing an increasing frequency of acute allergic reactions, in this case it results in a shutdown of the patients digestive system which is ultimately fatal."

"Rock showed me the paper trail on how the Moonsunfu and Tokugawa corporations are forcing these seeds on the farmers," Reno replied. "It even appears to be legal, the government knows all about this, and it has their rubber stamp of approval. It's been a big dark secret for years."

"Again you probably don't have any proof." Tawashi moaned.

"Only my word on what I saw." Reno sighed.

"What about the robots?" Tawashi asked. "Did you find out how the robots are involved?"

"No." Reno said. "Except for one thing. Rock has been mentioning something called the 'Zeroth Commandment'. It's something that gives him more control over robots. I also overheard Atlas complaining about not being allowed to bring Atom into the fold." Reno added. "Rock told him to be patient, that the time wasn't ripe yet. The two of them were in another room and were trying to contain their voices, I don't think Rock realized how little sound proofing the walls in that hotel room had. I was able to make out their conversation and I kept dumb about it."

"Now that worries me." Tawashi said. "Forget about having Astro on the inside professor, that could backfire on us. Now what do we do?"

"We can make use of data that the Ministry gathers though robot repair records," Reno suggested. "Almost every robot in this part of the country gets repaired, tuned up, or re-certified on a regular basis by us, and we keep an AI dump made at the time. We can identify any robots that are involved with this group that way."

"Good thinking Reno," Ochanomizu answered. "Does that satisfy you Inspector?"

"For now." Tawashi answered.


	5. Chapter 5

**A Fiery Gospel**

 _The Doctor Resurfaces_

 **Yuko** opened the door to the conference room and poked her head inside. "Hakase, I think you should put the news feed on the monitor."

At that moment Nakamura's cell phone buzzed and he fished it out of his pocket to answer it. He mostly listened to the voice on the other end, replied "Hai!" once or twice and then re-pocketed the phone.

Ochanomizu picked up the remote control from the desk and aimed it at the monitor. He connected it to the network and went to the Japanese CNN website. The headline seemed to confirm what Nakamura had just been informed of, _'_ _Breaking News!_ _VP of Tokugawa Industries Murdered._ _It is b_ _elieved_ _that the_ _Assassins were after CEO Tokugawa_ _Ieyasu_ _'._

"I was just informed about this by HQ," Nakamura said. "The inspector and I must return to police headquarters at once."

Tawashi stared at the news article up on the monitor. "It says that his car was hit by a surge cannon carefully aimed at the rear of the vehicle. Only VP Ashikaga was in the car at the time, he was apparently using the CEO's vehicle. Tokugawa Ieyasu was not in the car at the time, lucky for him." The inspector's face took on a dark look. "Sounds to me like this was the work of a robot, and I only know of two of them that are equipped with surge cannons that would have done something like this."

"How dare you accuse Atom of such a crime inspector. His AI would never allow him to take a human life and besides I can account for Atom's whereabouts at the time of the shooting," Ochanomizu said, "He's been right here in this building since early this morning."

"Then it must have been Atlas." Tawashi said. "I've been waiting for him to step out of line, but I never expected him to stoop to murder!"

"We still don't know how he's involved," the professor said in a stern tone. "There are other robots equipped with such weapons and there are also other weapons available that resemble surge cannons. I think you'd better wait till your police laboratory examines the car."

"Of course we will!" Nakamura replied. "Come on inspector, let's get back to HQ. I don't want you jumping to any half baked conclusions as usual!"

The two members of the Metro City police force bowed their goodbyes and took the elevator down to the ground floor where their police car was parked in the Ministry's garage.

* * *

 **After** Tawashi and Nakamura left the conference room, Atom walked in. Reno saw the look on his buddy's face and blurted out, "You were listening in, weren't you?"

"I asked him to," Ochanomizu replied.

"Why? I didn't want him involved."

"I can appreciate your concern Reno, but I realized that Atom would eventually get pulled into this matter."

"You're probably right, Hakase." Reno voiced. "But I agree with Tawashi, he should be not get himself mixed up in the police investigation or get anywhere near Rock."

"Until we know more, that would be a prudent idea," the professor said. "Atom, have you ever heard anything about this Zeroth Commandment that Rock and Atlas were talking about?"

Atom hesitated before answering, and made some vocalized pauses. "Yes and no." He finally answered.

"Well what is it?" Ochanomizu insisted.

"It's only hearsay." Atom replied. "Robot street talk and urban legend type stuff."

"Well..." Reno said.

"It may not mean anything." Atom hedged. "I'm sure you both are familiar with the Asimov's three principles."

"The three laws of robotics?" Ochanomizu said. "Of course we are. Issac Asimov was a famous American science fiction story writer. In his tremendous foresight he predicted many of the concepts of robotics and artificial intelligence over a half a century before they came to pass. His three laws are guiding principles in the programming of AI. Basically they are ...

One: A robot may not cause any harm to a human being, or though its actions or inactions allow any human to come to harm.

Two: A robot must obey any command given to it by a human being except when doing so would violate the first law. And finally,

Three: A robot must protect its own being except when doing so would conflict with the first two laws. Of course some exceptions and conditions were added to the second and third laws over the years, but in principle Asimov did lay the foundation for all AI robots now in existence."

"That's why it's impossible for any robot to commit murder, Hakase." Atom said. "Even Atlas, despite his omega factor wouldn't normally be capable of such an act, however …."

"What is it?" Ochanomizu demanded. "What are you afraid to tell us?"

"Lately I've been hearing some robot chatter about what you were just asking about," Atom finally relented. "The Zeroth Commandment is supposed to be some kind of AI infection that some robots may have been exposed to. It's a modification of the three Asimov principles, adding a Zeroth law. Isaac Asimov actually wrote about such a thing in one of his last novels. The Zeroth law stated that 'a robot may not allow any harm to come to Humanity directly, or via inaction. It also modified the existing three laws so that they could be ignored if not doing so would violate the zeroth law."

It took a while for that to sink in. "So what you're saying Atom, is that a robot whose AI has been modified by this Zeroth commandment would be able to commit murder if it was made to believe that by so doing he would be protecting humanity as a whole? My God! That's ghastly!"

"It's only street talk, Hakase," Atom voiced. "I haven't actually heard of any robot whose AI was modified by this thing."

"Hakase, Rock did imply that he'd been introducing this 'Zeroth Commandment' to robots now involved in his cult." Reno said. "He could have meant something like what Atom just described. I think he did say that Atlas at least was so exposed."

"In that case I think the police should be informed about this!," the professor exclaimed, "Especially if this 'Zeroth Commandment' is the work of Dr. Tenma!"

"NO Hakase!" Atom cried out. "That would be all that Tawashi would need to go on a rampage against all robots."

"Yes, I can see him running off half cocked. Still we can't keep this kind of thing a secret forever, we need proof."

"Then let me approach Rock and Atlas to find out." Atom said.

"NO, we've already decided against that!" Ochanomizu yelled back.

"Atom, it may come to that eventually." Reno said, patting him on the shoulder, "but for now let Hakase and myself find out what we can from robot repair records."

* * *

 **Tokugawa Ieyasu** glared into the camera of his video phone at the image of Metro City fire commissioner Stoker. "They let my chemical plant burn to the ground!" he yelled. Stoker wiped the sweat from his brow with a large handkerchief. "My men tell me that there was nothing they could do, the buildings were fully involved when they got there and they couldn't verify whether there were any highly volatile materials inside. I'd have to agree with their decision to hold back, it was simply too dangerous. Maybe if you'd have complied with fire department regulations and filed the proper manifest papers my fire fighters would have been able to make a less conservative action call."

"BULLSHIT!" Tokugawa roared into the phone. "Your robot fire fighters are supposed to risk their lives no matter what! Isn't that what robots are for?"

"May I remind you that a robot is supposed to safe guard its existence unless a human life is at stake. Your own people at the plant had already verified that all of your workers had gotten out safely. At that point only your sorry property was at risk, and no fire fighter, human or robot is going to risk their own lives in a dangerous situation to save mere property, especially when the risk of the fire spreading off site does not exist."

"Why are you sticking up for mere robots?" Tokugawa yelled back. "Can't you see that they were refusing to do their duty, that they are on the side of those 'Fiery Gospel' nuts! My taxes pay your salary you idiot. How can you look me in the face and call yourself a public servant?"

"Sir, may I respectfully ask you to fuck off?" Stoker said, closing the connection. He'd had it with idiots like Tokugawa Ieyasu, billionaire heads of industry that dodged their taxes using every loophole they could find, skirting the building code fire laws and then getting outraged when their properties burned down. That's what you get for cutting corners asshole, he thought.

* * *

 **Rock** Holmes poured himself a tall glass of sake and slowly drank it. The alcohol eased the anger he was feeling as he glared at the robot standing a few feet away from him. "Just what the hell were you thinking," He yelled at Atlas, "Or maybe you just weren't thinking."

"If you're going to accuse me of assassinating Tokugawa's VP, back off, it wasn't me." Atlas scowled. "Not that I disagree with whoever did it mind you, I thought we wanted to send a message, and get rid of the worst of the worst in the process.

"How many times do I have to tell you that we are a non-violent organization." Rock lectured Atlas. "We will disrupt the operation of corrupt corporations such as Tokugawa or Moonsunfu, we may even commit some acts of sabotage, but we will NEVER knowingly put any person in danger, not even the SOB's at the top, do you understand? Just what do you think was accomplished by this despicable act?"

"A clear message was sent to Tokugawa, and all of the other CEO's of our corporate enemies," Atlas said, "listen to us or watch your collective asses!"

"Tokugawa will just find someone to replace the VP you offed," Rock said. "If you think an impression was made with him you're dead wrong, it only made him mad. You don't wound a wild lion, you kill it. If you miss the lion, will just turn on you and get his revenge. It's not yet time to start the real war, we don't yet have all our troops in place. Thankfully there was that fire at the Tokugawa chemical factory to divert his attention."

"Stop accusing me of something I didn't do." Atlas snarled. "Fire, what fire?", he added.

"It seems that one of Tokugawa corporation's chemical factories has burned down," Rock laughed. The inferno started almost by itself actually, that factory was an accident waiting to happen. Now I did infect their computer with a little worm which I hoped would have gummed up the works by shutting down a few key systems so they couldn't start any of the robotic mixing machines. I didn't do anything to disable any safety systems, the fire alarm even sounded before the inferno really go started. I certainly didn't want to put any of the firebots in danger."

"That was nice of you." Atlas agreed. "You know I have a weak spot in my heart for firefighters."

Rock reached into his pocket and withdrew an EMP pistol. He pointed it at Atlas and shot him. The red and blue robot fell to the ground, twitching like a man in an epileptic seizure. Atlas lay still for a few minutes, and then slowly came back to his senses.

"What the fuck did you do that for?" He yelled back at Rock.

"Consider that a lesson!" Rock yelled. "You are going to obey my orders Atlas! I make the decisions! Got it?"

"Yeah Yeah, OK I got it." Atlas replied. "I'm telling you for the last time I didn't blast that stupid VP! You shoot me again with that thing and I'll blast YOU with my surge cannon!"

"Somehow I don't think so." Rock replied.

Atlas just glared at him, then turned and slowly walked away.

* * *

 **Inspector** Tawashi barged into professor Ochanomizu's office holding a piece of paper. Yuko ran in after him. "I'm sorry Hakase, I asked the inspector to wait in the outer office until I paged you, but he ran past me."

"That's OK Yuko, the inspector never was known for having any manors," the professor snarled. "OK Tawashi, what is so earth shattering important that couldn't wait?"

"I've got a warrant for Astro's arrest, that's what." The inspector boomed. "We just got the metallurgical analysis results back from the lab work on Tokugawa's limo, it was definitely burned clean though by a robotic surge cannon."

"I told you I had an alibi for Atom and I will swear out an affidavit that he was at the ministry at the time of Ashikaga's murder." Ochanomizu said grabbing the document from the inspector's hand. "Wait a minute inspector, this isn't an arrest warrant, it's a subpoena for Atom to appear for questioning."

"Same thing," Tawashi said, "We're going to do a sort of ballistics test on his surge cannon to compare the blast pattern against what we found on Tokugawa's car."

"What a minute, that's like asking him to testify against himself, you can't do that!"

"That only applies to humans, we can certainly do that for a robot!" Tawashi insisted. "If the blast pattern of Astro's arm cannon doesn't match those we found on the limo he's in the clear. Otherwise I'm hauling him in and holding him as long as necessary! Now where is he!"

"Atom's at school right now, as you should damn well know," the professor said leaning forward till his nose butted against Tawashi's. "Can this wait till school lets out?"

"I suppose so." Tawashi relented. "Just make sure you bring him round to the police lab later this afternoon, or I'll have him hauled over there in irons!"

"Very well inspector, Atom will be there, but under my supervision."

* * *

 **Rock** stood in front of the holographic projection that had materialized in the middle of his hotel room. The pocket sized projector had arrived several weeks ago after Rock had received a mysterious email from an infamous figure who had offered him his services. This would be the third time that the two of them had used this method of communication. Even as tall as Rock was, the man with the black coat, dark glasses, roman nose and well trimmed beard whose image was being projected before him, stood a good half head taller. Rock looked up into his eyes and glared at him, though the anger in his eyes was hidden behind his own mirrored glasses. "Atlas told me he wasn't behind Ashikaga's assassination, and strangely enough I believe him," Rock said. "The police know it was the work of a surge cannon equipped robot. Just what did you do and why?"

"You've been too passive Rock, you'll never accomplish the goals we share by simply making a little noise. I took the initiative of turning one of Tawashi's own robots towards our cause and activating him."

"You do realize that your assassin missed, don't you?" Rock said.

"Actually I knew Tokugawa would not be in that automobile, it was not my intention to eliminate him at this time. I only wanted him and the others to squirm a little."

"Well it won't take the police long to figure it out," Rock replied back.

"Possibly," the taller man agreed, "but that idiot flat foot inspector will probably waste his time accusing Tobio of the crime."

"If you mean Astro, that's exactly what's happening right now," Rock replied, "Though I don't know why you insist on calling him by that name."

"His name is what I gave him," the dark figure replied. "When it is time I will enlist Tobio to our cause, it is his destiny to bring order back to this world."

"We don't need Astro, Sensei," Rock fumed, "He's nothing but a soft and useless toy compared to Atlas, that is if I can knock some sense into him."

"Atlas is an inferior robot compared to my Tobio, one of my failures I'm afraid. You will keep him away from Tobio, understand."

"Perhaps you'd better tell him that yourself, Sensei." Rock replied.

He pressed a button on the projector closing the connection, and the hologram slowly evaporated.

* * *

 **Professor** Ochanomizu and Reno were waiting for Atom when he came home from school with Uran and Cobalt in the mid afternoon. He seemed a bit surprised to see the professor and Reno waiting for him. "Why are you home from the Ministry so early Hakase?" he asked.

"I'm sorry Atom, but while you were at school Inspector Tawashi barged into my office with a subpoena requiring you to submit to some testing at the police crime laboratory," Ochanomizu told him. "I had to agree to bring you over there as soon as you got home from school, but under the condition that I would be present during the investigation. I asked Reno to accompany me as well. By the way, Reno did you find the item I asked you to bring along?"

"Yes Hakase," Reno replied, "I put it in the trunk of your car."

"Excellent!" The professor replied.

 **It** was a short drive from Ochanomizu's house to Metro City police headquarters where the crime laboratory was located. Reno removed a duffel bag from the trunk, and started to shoulder it, but Atom grabbed it from him. "That looks heavy, let me carry it for you." he said.

"Ordinarily I'd let you carry things for me," Reno said, grabbing the bag back from his buddy, "but this bag contains some evidence we're going to use in your defense and I don't want to give Tawashi any reason to think you've tampered with it."

"Got it," Atom nodded, "he can't see me touching it."

 **Chief** Nakamura was waiting in the lobby for them. "I thought it would be better if I brought you over to the laboratory myself instead of Inspector Tawashi," he said. "he's waiting for us in the laboratory now."

The chief walked them through the hallways leading to the rear of the building where the crime laboratory was located. They walked past the armory and the firing range where several officers were practicing their marksmanship. Reno spotted Delta though the thick glass window and nudged the professor. They both watched as the head of the robotic police forces tested out his various weapons systems. As Reno and the professor watched, Delta blew a hole in steel and concrete target with his right arm cannon.

Nakamura noticed the two of them looking in on the range room. "I guess Delta must have had some tune up work done recently on his weapons systems and is doing his usual calibration tests. He's a fine police robot, and we're all proud to have him."

Tawashi was standing in the front of the crime lab with his arms folded, looking at his watch. "You're late!" he snarled at the professor.

"That was my fault," the chief answered, "I walked them the long way around the building."

"Very well, lets get started," Tawashi said. "Astro, I'm going to need you to shoot at some targets with your arm cannon so we can compare the blast patterns with those we took from Tokugawa's car."

"You think I killed his VP?" Atom said. "I'd rather be permanently deactivated than cause harm to any person, and you should know that."

"Look Astro, even saints have been known to commit murder under duress," Tawashi replied. "I just want to make sure, that's all." He turned to the lab technician standing in the back of the room at a workbench and called to him. "Hey Sam, you have those test targets ready?"

"I left them in the firing range for you, Inspector," he replied. "I didn't want any cannon fire in the laboratory, just what were you thinking?"

"Oh yeah, that makes sense." Tawashi facepalmed. "OK then, let's go to the range and have you blast some targets, Astro."

* * *

 **Delta** was just packing up his stuff when they entered the weapons test range room. Reno smiled as he noticed the target Delta had previously blasted with his arm cannon was still hanging, and while Tawashi and the lab tech were setting up a target for Atom on the other end of the range, he operated the controls to bring Delta's target forward on the conveyor belt. The hoist on the conveyor belt lowered the heavy hunk of steel and concrete to the ground onto a wheeled cart used to transport spent targets.

Atom morphed his left arm into cannon mode and fired a narrow low powered blast at the target, producing a clean round hole completely though it. Tawashi rolled the target back and lowered it onto a waiting cart, and had the tech place a somewhat heavier one up on the conveyor belt. He rolled it back into position. "OK Astro, give that one a shot, but this time use a bit more power, will ya?"

Astro sighed and compiled with Tawashi's request. The result was a somewhat larger hole in the second target. Once again Tawashi rolled the target back and lowered it onto the cart. He turned to the technician and said, "Take those two back to the lab and do your analysis on them."

The technician pushed the motorized cart towards the door where Reno and the professor were waiting. Tawashi was already gone, having started walking back towards the laboratory. Reno waved for Atom and he ran towards them. "Add this target to the cart Atom," Reno said.

"What's that?" the technician asked.

"That's another sample the inspector forgot to mention." Reno said slyly.

"Whatever," the technician sighed shrugging his shoulders. Reno winked at the professor as Atom picked up the heavy slap and added it to the cart. The first two targets were already labeled with black ink from a thick dry marker pen in Tawashi's handwriting. Reno pulled a red marker from his pocket and marked the third target with a triangle, the Greek letter Delta.

* * *

" **Would** you like us to stick around until the samples are analyzed?" Ochanomizu asked.

"If you wouldn't mind." Tawashi replied, as the technician took the two target slabs that Atom had blasted into the automated part of the lab. The laboratory robot lifted each of the two targets off of the cart and put them in turn in the scanning electron microscope to examine the edges of the blast pattern.

"Would you mind explaining to my guests what this equipment does?" the Inspector asked.

"Certainly Tawashi-San," Sam replied. Just like a conventional firearm leaves unique patterns in the bullet as it travels down the barrel of the gun, a surge cannon leaves a unique signature behind where the beam hits its target. That's because unlike a laser which produces a concentrated beam of light, a surge cannon emits a beam of particles at nearly relativistic speeds. While this beam does mimic a laser, its particle nature is still the dominate mode and the beam is not normally focused as sharply as that of a laser. When the beam hits its target it burns an image of its aura into said target, and this pattern is unique for every such weapon, just like a human finger print. I'm now examining the outline of this image on the molecular level using the scanning electron microscope. We can then compare these images with those I've already lifted from what was left of Tokugawa's limousine."

While Sam explained the idea behind the test, the laboratory robot quickly completed the analysis. "The images are ready sir," he replied.

"Thank you Photon," Sam said. "Now inspector if you will look on the monitor I'll run a side by side comparison between the blast image we recovered from the automobile and the two images I've just produced from the tests on Atom's surge cannon."

Sam brought up the comparison and pointed out the key points to Tawashi while Reno quietly got Photon's attention. Photon nodded to the boy and took a sheet of metal from the duffel bag that Reno had brought in with him as well as the target marked with the '∆' symbol and put them into the instrument to scan.

"I've noted the crucial identifiers on the images, Inspector," Sam explained. "Of the 40 or so unique identification points, only two match between the first target and the automobile, while there is only one match with the second target. It's very clear that Atom's surge cannon could not have been the weapon that was used against Tokugawa."

"I told you Atom was innocent Inspector!" Ochanomizu yelled.

"Actually, I'm glad the test showed that," Tawashi said, his head hung down low, "But I had to be sure. Only now I'm back to square one."

"Maybe not sir," Reno said. "Sam, is the scan done on the sample I brought in ready?"

"Yes Reno-kun it is," the technician said, motioning for Photo to set up the display again.

"What is this?" Tawashi asked.

"I brought in part of Atom's chest plate that was damaged in a fight between him and Atlas last year. Atlas hit Atom with his surge cannon." Reno explained. "Fortunately, it was a glancing blow, but there was a distinct burn pattern left in his chest plate. We replaced it when we repaired him, and I kept the damaged part."

"So we actually have a sample of Atlas's surge cannon as well." Tawashi said. "That was very sneaky of you son, you'd make a good detective you know that?"

Sam once again pointed to the images. "Interesting, the surge cannon that made these burn marks is very similar to the one that Astro has," he said. "They are not identical, but they are very close, maybe the same model even. As you can see of the 40 unique identification points, the image produced by this cannon matches three points with the image taken from the car, and it matches with 30 points when compared against Atom's."

"Well that makes sense," Ochanomizu laughed. "Both of those surge cannon were built by Dr. Tenma."

"Which means that Atlas isn't to blame either!" Tawashi moaned. "Yet another robot is involved."

"I've got one more set of images to show you Inspector." Sam announced as Photon programmed the monitor. "I think you'll find this one interesting."

Photon brought up a side by side comparison between the last two sets of scans. "The one on the left is from Tokugawa's automobile just as before. The one on the right is from the final target that Photon just finished scanning," Sam explained. He scrolled the images side by side each other bringing several matching points in line. With the images now locked in sync, he scanned down both of them. It didn't take a genius to see that the burn patterns were lining up perfectly.

"That's a dead match!" Tawsashi gasped. "You found our assassin! Where did you get that."

"I can identify the make and model of the weapon that produced that image, Inspector," Sam told him. "Unfortunately, I'm quite familiar with it because it is a police issue."

"WHAT!" Tawashi roared.

"I asked Sam to run that target through his scanner on a hunch inspector," Reno said. "When I was at the 'Fiery Gospel' rally I noticed some police robots in the crowd. One of them was Delta. That target was in the range when we entered, in the stall that Delta was taking target practice in. That image was produced by his surge cannon."

* * *

 **Hours** later at the Ministry of Science Inspector Tawashi was eating crow in Professor Ochanomizu's lab. Earlier he had ordered that Delta be deactivated and be brought over to the Ministry where his electronic brain could be scanned to find out just what had gone wrong with him.

"I can't believe it!" Tawashi sobbed.

"That's strange coming from someone that never turns away from an opportunity to bad mouth robots," Atom told the inspector.

"Yeah, you're right Astro," Tawashi said, "But Delta's different. He's always been in line with the police department, he's never given me any reason to feel uncomfortable working with him."

"Oh and I have?" Atom said.

"I'd have to give that a yes," Tawashi replied back. "You always want things your way."

"Yeah and he's usually right." Reno said.

"I suppose so." Tawashi voiced. "So what happened to Delta?"

"I haven't finished my examination of his AI dump yet," Ochanomizu replied. "It may be a few days before I have all the answers. The one thing I can tell you is that Delta didn't lie to us when he said he had no memory of firing his surge cannon on Tokugawa's car. I did a complete scan on his recent memory and there's nothing there. What is surprising is that he does remember events before and after the attack, even that he was at the spot where the shot was probably fired from. Yet there is no memory of actually doing the deed."

"Selective robot amnesia?" Reno asked. "Is that even possible?"

"I would have thought not," the professor said. "Robot brains don't work like that. That kind of memory behavior is more like the way the human mind operates. Robots don't have a guilt reflexes, at least not after the fact. Their version of that human emotion is supposed to prevent their performing any action that they would later feel guilty of. The human reaction would be to erase or modify the memory of having performing such a deed, a robot would just not have been capable of it in the first place."

"Yet it does seem that Delta did fire the fatal blast on Tokugawa's limo," Reno said, "his surge cannon was positively identified as the murder weapon. Yet we know that is against his basic A.I. programming, he can't take a human life."

"Hakase," Atom questioned, "what about the Zeroth Commandment?"

"I thought you said that was just robot hearsay, Atom." the professor said.

"I know, but what if?" Atom insisted.

"I'll have to carefully examine the dump of the lowest levels of Delta's A.I. core." Ochanomizu replied.

"I'll give you a hand with that, Hakase." Reno said. "Link his brain dump files to my computer downstairs and I'll get right on it."

"Thanks, son," the professor said, "Looks like this problem is going to be an all nighter."

"I guess I'll check back with you guys later," Tawashi said, giving Delta's now dormant body lying on the operating table a final glance.

"I'll leave you a message at police HQ if we find anything." Ochanomizu said as the inspector let himself out.

* * *

 **Atom** wandered downstairs to find Reno lying on the floor of his lab on a futon that he usually kept rolled up in the closet, with a large computer printout unfurled. "Find anything?" he asked.

"Maybe." Reno replied. "I hacked into the police computer and found an original copy of the police 'bot Mark-III A.I. code, that's pretty close to what Delta was built around. I've been comparing that to the dump that Ochanomizu Hakase extracted from him, and I think I see where its been modified. Someone has loaded an overlay set of subroutines that can override the primary Asimov-3 functions. It looks like your robot hearsay might just have more than a grain of truth behind it."

Atom's face suddenly seemed to show a sicking feeling across it and Reno noticed his expression. "You look like you just saw a ghost," he said. "Something cross your mind?"

"Yeah." Atom voiced. "You know it would take someone with quite a bit of expertise in A.I. to do something like that. Not only were Delta's core safety net routines bypassed, but he has no memory of his actions. That means his log subroutines were bypassed as well."

"What are you getting at Atom?" Reno said, a glint of recognition sprouting in his own mind.

"There is only one person I know of that could have engineered this," Atom said slowly, "not only figuring out a way to infect Delta with the overlay A.I. functions, but being able to trigger it and then remove all evidence that it was ever active from his memory."

"Yeah, I see where you're going with this," Reno gasped. "All of the speculation we've had about Dr. Tenma being involved here may actually be true."

Atom nodded. "Say, you feel like splitting a pizza?" Reno asked.

"No." Atom said, "So why don't you call in an order for two or three pies and I'll go pick them up."

Reno slowly got up off the futon. It was slow work because he'd been lying in an awkward position for too long and his back creaked. "Ouch!" he moaned as he made his way to the computer and surfed over to Luigi's web site to order. "Pepperoni with extra garlic and cheese with anchovies OK?" he asked.

"Sounds good to me." Atom said, adding, "And a huge bottle of Pepsi."

"No." Reno said. "I ordered myself Dr. Pepper tonight. Don't worry, I've got a few cans of your favorite oil in the 'fridge."

Atom opened the window and jumped out, while Reno went back to the printouts. He removed the #2 pencil he'd stuck behind his right ear and started to mark up the page.

* * *

 **A** bleary eyed Ochanomizu pushed the door to Reno's laboratory open and plodded inside to find the two boys sitting Indian style on a futon. There were several empty boxes of 'Luigi's Infamous' pizza heaped up in the corner of the room on top of a chair and a quarter full three liter bottle of flat Dr. Pepper sitting under it with stack of paper cups nearby. Reno looked up to see the clock near the door showing 11:30PM as his boss walked into the room.

"Help yourself to some Pizza, Hakase!" Atom said with a mouth full, pointing to an open box that still contained four slices.

"Don't mind if I do," Ochanomizu said, "providing you'll excuse my flatulence. My stomach's growling."

"Opps, I forgot that pizza makes you fart!" Atom laughed.

"Well maybe I'll just have some of the left over garlic rolls over there," the professor thought out loud picking up the greasy bag sitting next to the pizza box and looking inside. He extracted one of the two remaining rolls, now cold but still dripping with oil and garlic. "I must admit you've made a good choice there, Luigi's makes the best garlic rolls in Metro City."

He carefully removed the stack of empty boxes from the chair and sat down. "Any luck with the A.I. dump from Delta?" he asked.

"Yes actually." Reno said. "We've been unable to figure out how Delta was infected with this, but a highly sophisticated set of overlay functions has been patched into the lowest A.I. kernel. Remember the Zeroth Commandment stuff Atom mentioned? It would appear that's exactly what's been added."

"The Zeroth commandment would enable a robot to kill a human being, if the robot believed that in so doing he was protecting humanity as a whole." Atom explained. "However, that would take quite an extraordinary set of circumstances. Essentially, you'd have to tell a big enough lie, convincingly enough for the robot to believe it and invoke the zeroth command exception to the first law."

"Knowing Rock," the professor suggested, "He could be convincing enough to just pull it off."

"I don't think it was Rock," Reno sighed. "He doesn't strike me as being a homicidal zealot."

"I hate to say this," Atom added, "but it has Tenma written all over it."

"I was afraid of that." Ochanomizu replied. "Fortunately I was able to discover just how Delta was infected. Someone used a rather ingenious worm that could be delivered over a sensory link. In Delta's case I found traces of it in a dump of his audible logs. Whoever designed this had to know Delta's specific design configurations the worm would only attack though specific addresses on his synaptic bus."

"So the attack was sound based?" Reno asked.

"Yes, it was sent over a modulated beam of high frequency sound, something like a dog whistle only at an even higher pitch that only a robot could hear. Not only that, but it was tailored to only effect a single robot, but it could have also been targeted at a specific closely related group of robots."

"That kind of confirms our suspicions." Atom voiced.

"Yeah Hakase, there is only one person who could have done this." Reno added.

"I think I've reached the same conclusion," Professor Ochanomizu agreed. "Despite the fact that he seems to have adapted well to his treatment in the mental hospital, this does look like the handiwork of Dr. Tenma."


	6. Chapter 6

**A Fiery Gospel**

 ** _Calm before the rage_**

 **Reno** lay on the floor on his stomach, his head propped up on both hands, his elbows resting on the floor. Atom sat next to him, squatting with his legs under him, his butt resting on his boots. Both of them watched the screen of Reno's 60" HD television as the newscast drolled on.

Finally Atom broke the silence between them. "That's the third mention of a protest by this Fiery Gospel group on the news," he said. "What's with these guys? And just what did Rock put into your head?"

Reno ignored Atom for a few minutes. He slowly rolled over on his side and changed to a sitting position with his legs crossed in front of him. "Do you really want to know just how fucked up this world is?" he asked.

"Don't tell me you've been brainwashed by these guys." Atom said, almost laughing.

"You know me better than that." Reno grumbled. "Rock filled my head with all sorts of what you would call conspiracy theory paranoia. I tried to be polite with him, and insisted that he give me access to his actual data. Well yesterday I found quite a bit of stuff had been pushed onto my private space on the Ministry's server behind what I thought was an iron clad firewall. Some of this stuff could get me in trouble with government agencies from several countries because it had been hacked out of places you just don't want to get caught hacking into."

"How do you know the stuff is real?" Atom asked. "Rock could have just invented it to get you on his side."

"Oh it's real all right." Reno sighed. "I verified most of it with the help of some shady friends in high places. I've also been hacking into places that maybe I shouldn't have. You wouldn't believe how bad it is."

"Try me." Atom replied.

"Climate change for one." Reno started. "If the world isn't past the tipping point for unstoppable runaway change, we're not very far from that point. It would take the almost total cessation of the use of fossil fuels, and even then we'd only slow the process down for a while. The ice packs at both poles will be gone in a decade or so and resulting rise in the ocean will submerge many of the worlds most populous cities. Enough of Japan is high enough above sea level to survive, but even our nation will have to move millions of people inland. The US will be really hard hit with the entire east coast under water from Florida to Maine."

"Sounds grim." Atom replied, putting his arm on Reno's shoulder.

"There's more." Reno continued. "Several chemical companies have been developing chemical fertilizers, weedicides, and pesticides under the guise of increasing crop yields. These efforts originally started out with the good intention of cheaply feeding the world's growing population, but the companies developing these products had dreams of huge profits. They also started bio-engineering various grain crops to make them compatible with the farm chemicals they were developing, and even to make some crops produce their own anti insect poisons."

"That sounds like a good idea on the surface," Atom said slowly, "I take it something went wrong."

"Hai!" Reno replied. "These super insect resistant food crops turned out to be highly poisonous to many of the insect species that pollinate most crops. Over the past decade many species of Honey Bees have suffered huge declines in their population, and it now appears that these GMO'ed crops may be the primary reason for this. In addition there is a growing percentage of the human population that have developed acute food allergies as a result of consumption of grain treated by many of these new chemicals, or containing the bio-engineered genes. Doctors have only now started to identify a new form of this reaction that is almost always fatal. In some countries where public outcry has started to surface the chemical companies have been successful in getting laws passed making it illegal for anyone to label food products as being of GMO'ed origin."

"WHAT!" Atom cried out. "You mean the public wouldn't be able to know what they were eating, they would not have the right to avoid something that might be poisonous to them?"

"Sure." Reno replied. "It would hurt the chemical companies business, or expose them to lawsuits if anyone could prove they became ill from consuming their products. Want to know more?"

"There's more?" Atom said.

"Yes. After OPEC finally managed to get their members on the same page and finally get oil prices way above $100 a barrel the energy companies started drilling new wells in areas that had previously been deemed as too risky. They are now using a new technology that enables them to get at oil and gas that were locked tight into the oil bearing shale deposits. By injecting water mixed with various chemicals under high pressure deep underground they were able to produce large amounts of crude from wells that a few years ago would have come up mostly dry."

"Just what the world needed, more fossil fuels to release more greenhouse gases." Atom replied.

"If that were only all that is happening." Reno continued. "This hydraulic fracking process uses chemicals that can be highly toxic if they get into the water supply. While the oil companies claim that their wells are never drilled though any aquifers, they rarely do any surveying to insure this. Also the process often releases natural gas into the wells that is difficult to capture, and it ends up dissolved into the water table. Many people living near a fracked oil well have reported fires erupting from their water systems, hundreds of homes have burned down. It's even happened here in Japan in an area just east of Fuji."

"That's just not right." Atom said, the tone of angry beginning to rise in his voice.

"And then there are all the chemical spills, toxic fumes, and illegal waste dumping that many of these companies have gotten caught at. In one instance a paper factory owned by the Koike conglomerate was charged with untold number of counts of such pollution, in the areas surrounding that factory scores of people were coming down with cancers, skin diseases, and other major health issues. The company was allowed to plea bargain down to a single count and paid a shockingly small fine. Nobody saw any jail time, I'm sure the company paid off a few judges to get away with that so cheaply."

"You're right," Atom sighed, "things have gotten well out of hand here."

"I can name some of the billionaires who have gotten richer from all of this shit," Reno sighed, "You already know one of them here in this country, and there are more in other countries. These corporations have poured millions into the election campaigns of candidates that are friendly to their cause, that of greed over the welfare of the human race."

"I guess you mean Tokugawa for one." Atom replied.

"Hai, and he's hardly the worst of the bunch." Reno agreed. "But the worst thing is how all of this is being covered up and whitewashed over. Government agencies that should be doing research into the problems are off elsewhere, those that have are keeping the information to themselves, all because these mega corporations are using their monetary influence to direct government policy. It looks like even our Ministry is guilty of this!"

"Have you confronted Hakase Ochanomizu about this?" Atom asked.

"Not exactly." Reno answered, "I haven't yet confronted him with all that I've uncovered and asked him for an explanation."

* * *

 **The** receptionist at the front desk recognized Atom immediately, not surprising since he'd been there regularly to visit Dr. Tenma. It had been a few months since his last visit, something Atom felt a little guilty about. Part of the reason had simply been that he'd really been busy. Between school and a number of crises that required his help, including the recent typhoon, he'd barely had time for himself.

Still that wasn't really a good excuse, Atom knew he should have made the time to visit. He and Dr. Tenma had a bit of a falling out the last time he was over, a stupid heated argument that he'd allowed himself to be dragged into. He knew better than that, his AI logic should not have allowed things to have gotten so out of hand. That was a human failing! Kokoro had its down side.

The guard walked Atom towards the doctor's room. Although the facility was designated as a high security lock up, it looked more like a nursing home as far as its inmate patients were concerned.

"Kon'nichiwa, Sensei," Atom said as he was admitted into the doctor's room.

"Kon'nichiwa, Tobio," Tenma smiled, "or do you still insist that I address you as Atomu, or Astro?"

"You may call me Tobio if it pleases you, Tenma Sensei," Atom said. Perhaps he should just give in on this one little point if it gave Umataro any pleasure, he thought to himself.

"It doesn't really matter since this really isn't a social call is it, Atom?" Tenma said.

"I guess not," Atom voiced, "although it does please me to see you again, father."

"That relationship no longer exists between us," Tenma replied, "except sometimes in my own mind. Anyway, I suppose you wanted to ask me about Delta." He added, pressing a key on his laptop.

"Yes, I do." Atom acknowledged. "Did you reprogram him, and why?"

"Technically I did not reprogram Delta," the doctor answered, "for he still retains all of his original A.I. exactly as the day he was first put into service. I did however give him an additional directive, one that was unfortunately necessary."

"The Zeroth commandment," Atom stated, "You originated it."

"Guilty as charged," Umataro said proudly. However do not make too much of it. It's actually a very small subroutine, it could easily go unnoticed if you didn't know how to find it. Despite what everyone might think it can't turn a Kokoro robot into a killer. It simply gives the A.I. a higher sense of what's really important, and the ability to think its way out of a dilemma that would otherwise trap it. You're probably wondering how I accomplished it. I've tried to be a model prisoner her, and over the years I have earned myself some privileges. I was granted use of a computer," Tenma pointed to a small notebook computer on the desk, "Not very powerful, but using the internet access they unknowingly placed within easy reach I was able to make use of much more powerful machines outside of this room. I was also granted use of the facility's workshop. I suppose fixing television sets and other electronic toys for the staff helped gain me some trust. I was soon able to build the device that would enable infecting Delta with my little subroutine. Rock had to do the rest, he followed my instructions without realizing exactly what I had in mind. Delta was only a test, you see his A.I. isn't very sophisticated, not like yours anyway," Tenma smiled. "I had to know if it was actually possible to insert my new instructions into a robot's AI, and it worked perfectly. I gave him a sort of hypnotic suggestion and he followed my instructions perfectly. Now as for why ..." Tenma paused for a moment.

"I was incarcerated here because I wanted to elevate robots to lead mankind, and I would have made you the king of all robots. I suppose that goal might have been considered the work of a mad man, but considering where the world is rapidly going it might have been better had I been successful." He laughed.

"What do you mean?" Atom asked.

"Don't tell me you don't know." Umataro said in an angered voice. "I know Reno has already told you what Rock revealed to him. This planet is heading for a disaster of biblical proportions, the makings of which are totally the fault of a handful of greedy heads of industry who don't deserve to be breathing what remains of the uncontaminated air on this globe. I contacted Rock, although he thinks our relationship was his idea, and I planted the seeds of knowledge in his mind. As I expected, his charisma would serve me well, and he started this movement. Rock seeks a peaceful revolution, he organized protests all over Japan, and contacted similar organizations in other countries. Oh the name 'Fiery Gospel' was all his, rather brilliant actually, he surprised me."

"You don't agree with the non-violent approach?" Atom said sternly.

"Actually, no." Tenma said. "It can't work because the men controlling the dark side are too powerful. Oh I suppose the Fourth Estate could raise enough dirty laundry to eventually have charges brought against these criminals, but it would take too long, and these men have enough resources to avoid prosecution, even disappear completely, while still causing additional irreparable damage to the planet and society. In any case, they own much of the news media themselves, so you figure out just how much they will allow to be in print. No, they simply must be eliminated."

"You're wrong Dr. Tenma!" Atom answered, his anger rising.

"You simply do not have the logic to understand," Tenma said sadly as he slowly removed a small device from his left rear pocket, "It's time I so equipped you."

All of a sudden Atom felt intense pain, like a power drill hammering into his ears. The sound was at a pitch inaudible to human ears, none of the human guards outside of Tenma's room were aware of it, even the few robot guards in the facility could not notice the sound as it was tuned to a specific resonant frequency and modulation that only registered in Atom's electronic brain. Atom stood frozen in place, unable to speak or move, yet he was still aware of where he was, and he could still see and hear Dr. Tenma who was staring at him with a satanic smile on his face.

"Unlike Delta, you have a heart Tobio, so I can't trick you into mindlessly doing the right thing, however I can give you the ability to reason it out for yourself. Soon enough your anger will trigger the zeroth law that I am now hiding in your AI, and you will be able to follow the right path. Until then you will not remember this, and my little gift will remain undetectable and will be invisible to you."

Tenma shut down the device and pocketed it. He knew that the security cameras and hidden microphones in his room had recorded nothing thanks to a little hack he'd activated moments earlier that was diverting their real time feed with a previously recorded segment for the past few minutes.

Suddenly, the pain and all memory of it was gone. Atom stared at Tenma with a blank look on his face.

"Something wrong, Tobio?" Umataro asked.

"We were talking about something?" Atom asked. "I seem to have lost track of time or something."

"Yes, we were discussing why non-violent protests were useless." Tenma said sweetly.

"Of course, I remember now." Atom face palmed. "It is a dilemma worthy of Solomon."

"You'll figure it out eventually, Tobio," Tenma said reassuredly. "Would you like to play a game of chess?"

"Yes father, I'd like that." Atom replied.

* * *

 **Rock** motioned for Atlas to close the door behind him as he entered the room. "You're just in time," he said, as he cleaned his dark glasses with a tissue and put them back on. Suddenly the 3D project came to life and Dr. Tenma's image filled the space between them.

"Good afternoon Rock, Oh and I see Daichi is here too, excellent!" Tenma said.

"We seem to have a problem sir," Rock spoke, "The police have figured out your stupid prank thank's to Reno."

"Totally expected." Tenma replied, "Regrettable, but expected. Delta won't be of any more use to use, however he has served his purpose well."

"So now what?" Rock asked. "Are you going to go on a rampage and start a robot revolution to assassinate everyone that you think deserves it?"

"The thought has crossed my mind." Tenma smiled. "No I'm going to bide my time for the moment. Continue staging your protests as usual, perhaps being a bit destructive here and there. Tokugawa has enough facilities within your reach that can be torched," Tenma suggested. "You won't do any him any real damage, but you can at lest make him mad, which will also make him paranoid. Then he will start making mistakes. Oh and you can reach out to some of the other corporations on our hit list while you're at it."

"Just make sure you keep out of my way." Rock snarled, closing the connection. He turned to Atlas, "I've got something to take care, but I've left some of your favorite oil in the kitchen. Help yourself to it, and then let yourself out."

"Hai," Atlas replied waving to Rock as he left the apartment.

As soon as the door closed, the holographic display came back on. "Good timing, Sensei." Atlas smiled, "He just left."

"Excellent!" Tenma replied. "I needed to talk to you alone. You'll be happy to know that it has been done. It is time."

"Thank you Sensei," Atlas responded. "I will see to it at once."

"Do not expect to win him over immediately," the holographic image replied. "Tobio's Kokoro is much more complicated than Delta's simple A.I. was. He will resist you and will avoid using the logic now ingrained into his basic instincts. It will take an act of extreme anger to turn him. It will happen, but first you must show him the evil that we are both fighting. Once Tobio's anger is engaged he will do our bidding."

"How will I be able to do that?" Atlas asked.

"The right moment will present itself." Tenma said. "I will let you know what to do when the opportune moment arrives."

* * *

 **Hisa Goto** stood in front of the large plate glass window that lined the wall of the fourth floor conference room of the Moonsunfu corporation's headquarters building. He could see the line of protesters out in the street, waving their signs. He could not hear what they were yelling at the top of their lungs, they were too far away, even with their bull horns, and the room he was in was heavily soundproofed against outside noises.

Time and time again several members of the crowd would attempt to get past the barricades erected by Moonsunfu's private security force and the local police, but to no avail. Already several of them had been clubbed senseless by the gendarmes, many more had already been arrested for attempting to get past the company's perimeter.

A weaselly looking individual with curly hair and a thin mustache stood behind the CEO. He looked at the crowd and cackled, "Those fools, just who do they think they are?" he laughed.

"Don't take them lightly," Goto frowned, never once turning back to face his associate. "Their movement is gathering momentum. We may have to increase our security forces and hire body guards for the members of the board. Eventually an attempt will be made. It already happened to Tokugawa."

Goto kept his gaze on the crowd outside, watching as they finally started to leave. "By the way, Hamegg, have you found out about that little problem we were having?"

"Hai, Goto-San," the weaselly looking one answered. "As was suspected it was an unexpected mutation in a small batch of seed product that somehow managed to get released into a production run. We've recalled all of the unsold product and destroyed what remained in storage. R&D had retained sufficient samples for further research, just in case."

"What were the damages?" Hisa asked.

"Well we are looking at a loss of about 100 billion yen in revenue for the unsold product that we will have to write off," Hamegg reported. "The media has reported under a 100 suspected cases of fatal reactions to the consumption of product already harvested, and ten actual confirmed cases. Our own data suggests those numbers are perhaps 10 to 100 times too low. We were quite fortunate that the specific mutation was generally a recessive trait that only became toxic in the human gut when consumed within a limited time period after the grain had been processed into flour. Also only the combination of the product with a limited variety of other ingredients, including certain fish oils, during cooking rendered the toxin deadly."

"Good," Hisa smiled, "It doesn't look like we will be on the hook for this one."

"Hai." Hamegg said, sighing with relief. "You know sir, it seems that the bulk of the problem only occurred in the baking of certain kinds of bread, pizza in particular."

"Interesting," Goto voiced, "That might prove useful."

* * *

 **Professor Ochanomizu** looked up from his desk at the two boys that were standing in front of it. Reno had that 'You've got some explaining to do' look in his eyes, and Atom, well Atom had a look on his face that the professor could not explain, it was somehow something different for him.

"I guess you finally want me to answer your questions about the research that you think I've been covering up?" he sighed.

"Hai." Reno answered calmly.

"If this was an ideal world I suppose I'd have handled things a bit differently." the professor stated simply. "The fact is that this institute is chartered by the Japanese government to advance the cause of science. The discoveries that we make here are freely available to industry to make use of. The Ministry is charted to license our entire patent portfolio, and the fee structure is determined by the cost of the research to develop the patent. No favoritism is made to any individual company."

"I'm aware of the ministry's charter, Hakase." Reno replied. "I'm not sure it actually ends up working that way, does it?"

Ochanomizu poured himself a glass of water from a thermos bottle on his desk and took a long slow drink. He set the glass back down on a coaster and cleared his throat.

"The Ministry gets to choose the areas that we want to research based on the pet interests of the scientists that work here. As the director I do get the final say on what research actually does get funded. Of course my decisions have to be approved by the government, since most of our funding does come from the national budget. Usually my recommendations are followed and we get the funds that we have requested. Not all of our research goes into advancing new technologies of course, I always put several projects dealing with pure research in various fields into the annual budget request, and most of these also get approved."

"What kind of pure research projects?" Atom asked.

"Usually things like underwater exploration, space science research, medical research, earth sciences, those sort of things," the professor replied.

"So research into climate change would be one of those areas." Reno stated.

"Yes it would be," Ochanomizu replied. "Recently, my requests for such research have been denied with no explanation. I was quite shocked at this and I argued in front of the Diet assembly to have funding for this reinstated. It never was, and I never got any good answer for that, other than 'lack of available funds, tight budget, etc'."

"The funding was denied because of lobbying by members of industry." Reno stated. "I have the proof of this. Particularly due to lobbying by Tokugawa, Moonsunfu, and the Koike family."

"That does not surprise me," the professor answered. "Anyway, I did manage to fund those projects by doing the research required under the guise of other funded projects. For the past two years the ministry has gathered quite a bit of evidence for climate change as part of research projects to study deep sea ocean life, migration patterns of whales, and underwater thermal vents."

"Why weren't these results published?" Reno questioned.

"They were initially," the professor replied. "I was later given a mandate from high up in the government that I had to remove that data, and all conclusions reached from those studies from public record. I was told that those fields of research were being removed from the ministry's charter."

"And you just let it slide?" Reno demanded.

"I had little choice," the professor sighed. "It was made quite clear to me that I either did as I was requested or someone else would replace me as head of this organization."

Atom's eyes glazed over for a minute. "I'll mention that to my friend and see if the emperor knows about this." he said.

"Atom, I don't know if the emperor's grandson will be able to help you here." Ochanomizu said. "Even if the emperor does get involved, remember he is only a figurehead, it is the Diet assembly that has the real power in our government."

"You still should have tried to make the ministry's data known." Reno said. "I'm disappointed in you, Hakase."

"Now what makes you think that I didn't." the professor smirked. "I couldn't post the data under my name, or in any connection with the ministry. My only choice was to sneak the data out via a third party. Fortunately, I did have an American friend who was able to help."

"Who?" Reno asked.

"A Mr. Dirk Pitt, director of the American National Underwater Marine Agency. With the help of his computer expert Hiram Yeager, I did manage to secret the ministry's data into NUMA's hands. Hopefully they were able to circulate it as their own. Now are you satisfied?" Ochanomizu asked.

"I think so." Reno said. "But were you aware of the facts I've sent you?"

"Most of them." The professor answered. "I agree that the world situation does seem to have gotten out of hand, that's why these radical political groups are springing up like wild mushrooms after a rain. Understand that I must be careful into what areas I get this institute involved. I don't want to risk losing control over it lest the wrong person end up in charge here."

"Then what can we do, Hakase?" Reno asked.

"Stay in touch with this 'Fiery Gospel' group," the professor said. "see what other information Rock and his followers are willing to feed you. Continue your own research, but use your private data store behind our deep firewall. I'll enlist the aid of NUMA as well. Maybe if we can find enough really bad incriminating evidence against these corporations, or corrupt members of the Diet Assembly we can get some things changed."

"I doubt that is going to happen," Reno sighed, "but what other choices do we have."

"None except those that I don't care to think about." the professor agreed.

Atom just bowed his head in agreement.

* * *

 **The** two boys turned to leave the professor's office, but he called to them to stop. "Atom, I understand you went to visit Dr. Tenma?" he questioned.

Atom quickly turned about, and Reno stopped in his tracks as well.

"Hai, Hakase." Atom replied, "I did. He admitted being in contact with Rock and the 'Fiery Gospel' political group. He also expressed his thinking that direct intervention was necessary, not the generally peaceful tactics of protect that Rock is pursuing. They both agree on getting robots involved, though for different purposes, and Umataro did admit to having developed the means to modify robotic AI towards this Zeroth commandment, as you suspected. He used Rock to test it out on Delta, without his knowledge."

"What!" Reno shouted. "Atom, did he touch you!"

"Don't worry pal," Atom reassured his friend, placing his right hand on Reno's left shoulder, "Dr. Tenma didn't do anything to me."

"Are you sure about that Atom?" the professor replied, "Remember we suspect that the infection was delivered via the sensory system, probably though the hearing channel."

At this comment Atom stood there in thought for a few moments before answering, "No Hakase, I don't remember anything like that."

"Reno, I think maybe you'd better do a quick scan on him, just in case." the professor suggested.

"Very well," Reno replied. "Come down to my laboratory Atom, let's get this over with." He grabbed Atom by his ear and gently tugged him towards the door. As the two boys left the professor's office Atom was heard to complain, "You're not strapping me down to that Frankenstein table of yours again!"

* * *

 **Atom** flinched and jerked as the computer scanned his systems. Strapped down to the operating table at a nearly vertical position, straps around his ankles, wrists, waist and neck held him securely in place. Several cables were attached to points inside of his body though his open chest hatch, and to a 'dog collar' around his neck.

"Almost finished buddy, hang in there!" Reno said, trying to calm the boy robot.

Atom clenched his teeth as another wave of probes clouded his vision. Finally it was all over, Reno started to throw all of the switches on the machinery to their off positions and disconnected the cables.

"You can breath normally now," he said scratching Atom's head between his two pointy cowlicks.

Reno released the straps holding his buddy's wrists to the table, and Atom quickly began to free himself from the rest of the restraints before Reno could get to them.

"Are you satisfied?" he asked.

"I don't know." Reno said shrugging his shoulders. "I didn't find any evidence of the kind of tampering that we found in Delta's AI, but that's hardly a good assurance. Your programming makes him look Neanderthal in comparison, and there are more places to hide a submarine hack. I also found a very small blank spot in your memory during the period that you were visiting Dr. Tenma."

"What do you mean?" Atom asked, a worried look on his face.

"Just that." Reno replied. "There were a couple of time stamps missing from your memory log files. Your AI is constantly re-writing a huge circular buffer file every few milliseconds with time stamped data. If you ever get seriously damaged, like the many times you and Atlas blasted each other, those files record every thing that happened. It's sort of like the data logs that automobile and airplane systems keep to aid the mechanic when something goes wrong. Anyhow, there are a few time stamp intervals were missing, almost like the subsystem that writes them went off line for a very short while."

"Does that mean anything?" Atom asked.

"Maybe. That sort of thing isn't uncommon, when your systems are very busy or under duress, the first thing that does get dropped, being a low priority task, is that time stamp logger. There were several places in the log file where I noticed this, so it's sorta not out of the normal. It's just a coincidence that one of those events happened during the period you were with Tenma."

"Yeah, I see what you mean." Atom said. "Especially since I wasn't particularly active at the time, my systems weren't operating in crisis mode."

"Exactly." Reno said. "Look, I've made a very detailed dump of your systems just now. I've got a complete download copy of your primary AI code, and both backup copies. I'll have the computer keep scanning them at lower and lower levels. if there is anything there that shouldn't be there, I should be able to find it, eventually."

* * *

 **Chiko** and Danno Koike greeted their guest as he walked into the conference room. After bowing politely to his hosts, Tokugawa Ieyasu took the seat he was motioned to. He seemed to be a bit miffed, having a less than pleased look on his face.

"We hope you weren't too upset by our security precautions, Tokugawa-San," Danno Koike said.

"Actually, I was," Ieyasu said gruffly. "A man of my position doesn't expect to be probed and scanned like that."

"Then we must apologize for your discomfort," Chiko said. "Please understand that it was necessary. We have escaped many attempts on our lives only by taking such extreme precautions. Several of these attempts involved assassins who used perfect disguises to impersonate close friends and business associates."

"Really?" Tokugawa replied with some intrigue.

"I'm surprised," Danno Koike returned, "Surely you must take such precautions yourself. Wasn't your VP recently killed by some robot just outside of your headquarters?"

"The police tell me that it was a freak accident," Tokugawa replied, "A one in a million AI defect in one of their own crime unit 'bots."

"And you actually believed them?" Chiko gasped.

"Well, perhaps not." Ieyasu admitted. "I have increased security around my headquarters."

"You really need to keep bodyguards around you at all times, Tokugawa-San," Danno said. "You've probably noticed ours?"

"Actually I haven't"

"There are several just outside this door." Danno smiled. "This room is well monitored as well. If anything were to happen, help would arrive within milliseconds."

"Why are you telling me this?" Tokugawa asked.

"Because you are an invaluable business associate," Chiko explained. "If your first few test wells pan out our two companies will be able to make billions in profit extracting the mineral wealth in Japan's mountainous regions. Unfortunately several groups have sprung up wishing to stop us."

"'The Fiery Gospel' nuts?" Tokugawa asked. "They've been a bit of a thorn in my side with their protests. Two of my facilities mysteriously burned down, and I suspect arson."

"They are a greater risk than you imagine, Tokugawa-San," Chicko replied. "There is someone quite talented and dangerous behind them, though we don't yet know who he is."

"I've had an elite group of hackers monitoring the Ministry of Science," Danno added. "Someone there has attempted to hack into our systems multiple times. Eventually I will learn who is behind these break-ins and what they are after."

* * *

 **Antonio Luigi** was a bit of an outcast as a person of Italian descent living in Japan. His family had a long history perfecting the art of Italian cuisine. Luigi's father, like his grandfather, and his great grandfather had all come from a line of chiefs of great renown in the old country. Just before the second world war, Luigi's family made their escape out of the country fearing the worst in a regime under Mussolini. They ended up in an Italian neighborhood, not far from San Francisco's Little Tokyo. Luigi's family became good friends with their Japanese neighbors, and they shared recipes. When the US government rounded up the residents of 'little Tokyo' and shipped them off to interment camps, the Luigi's expressed their outcries of anger, to no avail. Years later, the war over, some of their friends tried to return home only to find themselves unwelcome. A few wanted to return back to Japan to be among long lost family. Antonio's grand parents decided to emigrate with their friends, which is how a genuine Italian pizzeria ended up being open in downtown Toyko. Two generations later, Antonio Luigi now operated the establishment in the middle of Metro City.

Antonio took pride in his pizza, and only used the best ingredients he could find. He had his organic flour made from grain purchased from farmers whose fields he's inspected himself personally. He had the grain ground into flour only just before actually using it to prepare his food. He believed that storing flour for too long caused the flavor to diminish, and that only freshly ground flour should be used in the preparation of pizza. So he was quite pleased that a fresh batch of grain had just been delivered to the mill to be kept in storage for his restaurant's own personal use.

* * *

 **Reno** heard the tapping on his living room window and walked from his bedroom to open it. Atom was hovering by the window with a stack of pizza boxes in one hand and his other arm wrapped around Cobalt's waist. Reno unlocked the window and let the two robots in.

"You're a little late." Reno laughed. "I can usually set my watch by you, but today you're about five minutes later than your promised arrival time."

"Sorry about that," Kobaruto apologized. "It was my fault."

"I hope you don't mind my bringing him," Atom said, "Uran was busy throwing a fit and the two of us just wanted to get as far away from her as possible."

"I don't think I want to ask." Reno said, "I can only imagine how Hakase is handling her."

"I think he locked her in her room," Cobalt said.

"That's not going to end well." Reno gasped.

"Probably not." Atom agreed.

"Well, don't worry about it," Reno replied looking at Cobalt, "Besides, now we have enough players for a game of three handed bridge."

"You and your card games." Atom face palmed, "Well OK, I'm willing if Kobaruto is."

"Sure, sounds like fun!" Atom's brother smiled.

Atom put the stack of Luigi's Pizza boxes on the table in the middle of the living room. Reno leaned over and sniffed, "UMMM, I can almost taste the anchovies and garlic!"

Cobalt quickly read the rules for the game and volunteered to be the dealer. Reno found the Vegas style visor hat he had in his closet and planted it on Kobaruto's head. "Now you look the part," he laughed.

Just as soon as the first hand was dealt another rapping near the window was heard, this time almost loud enough to break the glass.

Reno got up to find Atlas hovering in front of the window demanding to be let in.

"Might as well," Atom suggested, "otherwise he'll just break the glass or go though the wall."

Atlas entered the room quietly, "Konbanwa," he said politely.

"I'm shocked." Atom said, "What's wrong?"

"Oh I think Reno knows what I came over for," Atlas replied.

"If you think you're going to infect Atom with Dr. Tenma's AI virus, forget about." Reno replied standing between him and Atom. Cobalt got up stood by Reno's side.

"Furthest thing from my mind," Atlas said sincerely. "Besides, the doc already took care of that."

Atom looked at Reno with some fear, but the boy shuck his head back and forth. "The computer scans turned up nothing, your AI wasn't touched as far as I can tell."

"That's what the Doc told me would happen." Atlas said shrugging. "Look Astro, all I want to do is talk some sense into your thick head. Just listen to me, get mad if you want, slug me if it makes you happy. I'm not going to fight you, only lecture you, OK?"

"Let's hear what he has to say." Atom said, looking at Reno.

"OK," Reno said, pointing to the couch. "Why don't we all sit down and get comfortable?"

 **Atlas** sat between Atom and Cobalt on the couch, while Reno pulled up a chair and took a place on the other side of the coffee table facing the three of them. Atlas leaned over and looked into the open pizza box, shrugged his shoulders and pulled out a slice of pepperoni with anchovies. He slowly took a bite and smiled. "OK, so I was wrong about this, it's actually quite good."

"Somehow I don't think you came over just to finally sample pizza," Reno said.

"Just looking for a way to break the ice," Atlas shrugged. _(Take that, Ayn Rand!)_

"We already know about the corporations that are mucking up this planet," Atom replied, "and Reno and I have already decided that the 'Fiery Gospel' is on the right track with their protests and media leaks."

"Nice. I'm proud of the two of you." Atlas replied. "But it's not good enough. I know you think I hate humans. Not true. I like humanity, however I cringe at how stupid they all are as a whole. You have less than one percent of the human race attempting to screw the other 99 percent out of everything. Barons of industry who don't care about tomorrow so long as they can have it all today, they'll be happy to leave a scorched earth to their heirs."

"I can name a few of the criminals you're referring to," Reno replied, "and I'm working on finding enough evidence to expose them and have them all tried and convicted, if not in a court of law then in the court of public opinion."

"That's a noble idea, really," Atlas said, "but useless. These guys have bought the system, they own it. They own the judges, the government, the news media, all of it. You think you have a chance, forget it."

"They don't own the social media," Reno replied. "If we get the truth out to enough people we can change the government, vote their cronies out of office and put people sympathetic to our cause in."

"Sounds good in theory," Atlas said. "Tell that to Al Gore though will you. Elections can be rigged."

"Well, I guess we could do a little rigging ourselves." Atom voiced.

"I can't believe I heard you say that!" Atlas said slapping Atom on the back. "Only it won't work because the paid for judges will simply invent an excuse to determine the outcome their way. Again, ask Mr. Gore about that. No, I'm afraid if you want to get rid of these bastards, you simply have to get rid of them. Permanently."

"You can't go there," Atom said, raising his voice. "We can't commit murder."

"Why?" Atlas asked in a calm voice. "Because it violates the first commandment as set down by Asimov? Even if leaving one very evil human still breathing dooms billions of other innocent humans to a slow death? One for a billion. Sounds like a fair trade to me."

Atom tried to open his mouth to revoke the statement. He almost voiced something but it wouldn't come out of his throat. Finally Reno said it for him.

"A truly pious man will not stoop down to the level of his enemies, EVER!" he yelled. "Don't you get it, Atlas? That's a very slippery road to start traveling on. Once you go there, you'll hate yourself forever!"

"A non-logical human emotional response." Atlas replied. "The same kind of response that has started more wars by refusing to stop them before they ever got started, Neville Chamberlain is probably rolling over in his grave for that mistake!"

Reno saw the state of confusion stuck on Atom's face, and he knew. "Snap out of it!" he yelled slapping his buddy across his face, and then applying a serious nuggie to his scalp.

Atom grabbed Reno's hand and pushed it away from him. He stood up and looked down into Atlas's face. "I'm sorry, but Reno is right. I'd rather be pious than dirty my hands in evil. There simply has to be a better way, I hope. Atom turned to Reno, "I think I'd better go, chum. Sorry about spoiling the evening." Atom seemed to be in a fog as he walked towards the window, opened it, and flew away.

Reno gave Atlas a stare that could melt steel. "You'd better leave too." he said. Atlas shrugged his shoulders and also left via the window.

"You can spend the night if you like," Reno told Cobalt.

"No, I think I'll walk home." Cobalt voiced. "I need to find my brother."

"I'm coming with you Coby," Reno said, "Or rather you're coming with me. I'll drive you home."


	7. Chapter 7

**A Fiery Gospel**

 ** _Atom's dilemma_**

 **Reno** and Cobalt took the elevator down to the basement level of Reno's apartment building where the garage was located. The elevator let them out at the very rear of the parking area. Sitting in a corner where it would be almost unnoticeable to the casual eye was what looked like a large locker for the storage of cleaning supplies. Reno entered a combination on a keypad mounted on the door of this storage shed and then inserted a key fob into a slot underneath it. There was a distinct 'CLICK' as the electronic lock unlatched. Reno then lifted the door open to reveal a small three wheeled vehicle with side by side seating for two.

"I've heard about this vehicle," Cobalt said, "but this is the first time I've ever seen it. It looks impressive."

"Thank you Coby." Reno replied. "It took me nearly half a year to design it, build two prototypes that almost worked the way I wanted, and then finally build this final version."

The two boys pulled the vehicle from its garage. Reno disconnected the charging cord from a socket at the rear of the vehicle, and then closed the door behind it.

Metro City, like almost every major Japanese city, is full of narrow crowded streets and lots of traffic. With almost all of its petrol imported, the price of motor fuel in the island nation makes the ownership and operation of an automobile something that only the upper crust can afford. Many citizens rent cars for those special long vacation trips, and most commute by the excellent rail systems that criss cross the country. For most urban transit as far as 30km or so a bicycle is the usual choice.

Reno's answer was a solar-electric vehicle with a chassis somewhat of a cross between a bicycle and a motorcycle. The vehicle had two narrow tires in the front, and a single much fatter one in the rear. The outside skin of the thing was covered in high efficiency, high output photo voltaic panels that seemed to be melted into the body of the vehicle. These charged a newly designed lithium carbide battery that gave the funny looking car nearly 400 km of range in total darkness. In full sun it could almost make 750 km without recharging off the mains.

"Get in and we'll see if Atom made it home OK," Reno said.

Cobalt opened the port side door and took a seat. Reno closed the passenger door and then walked over to the starboard side and got behind the wheel. He inserted the key fob into a slot on the dashboard and the vehicle came to life. The instrument panel was 'all glass' consisting of several OLED panels. The power monitor indicated a full charge in the battery. Reno put the car into 'gear' and it silently rolled forward on its own power, the all electronic transmission responding instantly.

The headlamps came on as they exited the well lit interior of the garage into the darkened street. Reno's apartment building was located close enough to the Ministry laboratory buildings for him to walk to work if he wanted, though he usually rode his bicycle. Since completing the electric trike car, he'd only driven it to his laboratory only a few times, usually on rainy mornings, or when he'd overslept and was late.

They turned onto a main street that took them from the part of the city where the ministry, and Reno's apartment was was located, to a more distant neighborhood with less urban sprawl. This was a more 'well to do' area where professionals made their home, it was where Professor Ochanomizu lived.

"Atom isn't home," Cobalt said as they approached the professor's house.

"You can sense him and know where he is?" Reno asked.

"Hai," Cobalt answered. "He's not too far from here, drive about two klicks past our house and pull into the park at the end of the street."

 **Reno** followed Cobalt's directions and arrived at a the entrance to a wooded area. He turned his headlamps on high beam as the road into the park was unlit. They navigated though the winding road until they came to where it ended by a lake. Reno stopped the vehicle and both boys exited. There visible in the moonlight, was a forlorn looking figure sitting on the edge of a fishing pier that extended about 40 meters from shore into the lake.

Cobalt walked slowly along the length of the wooden walkway, his blue boots making a squeaking sound as he plodded toward where his brother sat with his legs dangling over the water. "You OK, 'Bro?" he asked.

Atom turned around to see Cobalt standing next to him with Reno a few meters behind him.

"Yeah, I'm OK now." he said looking up at Reno. "Though I think you might want to examine me again Reno. When Atlas explained how he could justify murder I wanted to scream at him with my usual speech on how robots were made to protect humans and never harm them. Before I could get a word out of my mouth a strange feeling suddenly came over me, a sense of a larger picture that had to be considered. Mind you, I still felt that Atlas was dead wrong, but not with the intense conviction I knew I should have felt. I feel so ashamed of myself for not responding to him. It was almost like I was caught in an endless logic paradox loop."

"Yeah, that sounds like what Tenma must have done to Delta." Reno said. "Only his AI doesn't have your strong Kokoro so it was easier for him to have given in to the suggestion than for you. Let's go back to your house and have you sleep it off. I'll check you out again in the morning with some more advanced equipment, OK?"

"Yeah, sure." Atom said. He squeezed himself into the small space behind the seats of Reno's electric car, and the three of them slowly rode back to the professor's house.

"Gee I hope that Uran has calmed down." Cobalt muttered as they approached the house.

* * *

 **They** arrived back at the professor's house within minutes. While Reno parked his little car, Cobalt walked arm in arm with his brother to the door and opened it.

"You're back early, oh you're here too?" The professor said as he saw the robot boys walk in followed shortly by Reno.

"How's Uran?" Atom asked.

"Oh she calmed down shortly after you two walked out," Ochanomizu laughed. "Once you were gone she realized she'd lost the argument, and she forgot what had started the disagreement in the first place."

"That's good," Cobalt said, wiping his forehead with his left hand.

"If you don't mind Hakase, I'm going to my room and power down for the night." Atom said as he slowly walked to the rear of the house.

"What's eating him?" the professor asked Reno.

"Atlas showed up at my apartment shortly after we started playing cards," Reno said. "He engaged Atom in an argument over the use of deadly force to eliminate certain criminal elements controlling government for their own greed. Normally Atom would have wanted to pound sense into Atlas for suggesting something like that. Somehow he wasn't able to do that, and after we showed Atlas the window of my apartment, Atom left in shame."

"Did you find anything in his AI?"

"No, all my initial computer scans came up negative," Reno answered. "I did find something unusual in the time stamps of his memory log files though."

"Yes, that might mean something," Ochamonizu said, scratching his chin. "Perhaps we should put him in the Ministry's detailed robot analysis chamber in the morning."

"That's what I suggested to him as well." Reno said.

"I'll take care of that tomorrow," the professor said.

"Good, in that case I'll get back to digging for incriminating evidence on the men behind three certain companies that Rock's group is harassing."

"OK, but be careful son. You're dealing with some of the richest and most powerful men in the country. They could pose a formidable danger if provoked."

* * *

 **Reno** had become aware of someone looking over his shoulder and he turned about from his computer screen to see Cobalt standing behind him.

"Oh it's you Coby," Reno said. "What brings you to the ministry today?"

"I came in with Hakase, he's got Atom in the lab for an examination." Cobalt voiced. "I Guess I didn't have the stomach to watch my brother being tortured so I was wandering around the hallways and somehow ended up here. Say, it's past two o'clock in the afternoon, aren't you hungry?"

"Yeah, I guess my stomach is growling a bit," Reno admitted. "I've been so absorbed in my hacking that I kinda lost track of time."

"Find anything?"

"A few things, but not enough to actually do me any good." Reno said. "The Koike's have pulled quite a lot of shady deals that they wouldn't like the public to know about, they've managed to keep themselves out of jail, but they have had to pay out millions in fines for illegal dumping of toxic waste. There is also a long list of public officials unofficially on their payrolls, taking bribes. I suppose those persons would rather not have that as public knowledge.

"Hisa Goto, CEO of Moonsunfu has some dirty laundry in his company's closet that he'd rather not have made public, but again nothing actually illegal. Seems his company has released quite a few products onto the market before all of the necessary safety testing was done and they've had a few recalls kept out of the news.

"Ditto for Tokugawa, though he'd probably have to pay a large fine for his company drilling for oil without all of the necessary permits having been fully approved. The problem is that the court of public opinion can only embarrass these guys, and they can whitewash over anything I might uncover."

"Sorry to hear that," Kobaruto said, "Why don't you come upstairs with me. I think Hakase might be almost finished with my brother, and the two of them might want to see you."

"Sure, I wonder how Atom is doing." Reno thought.

* * *

 **Atom** was sitting calmly on the edge of a padded operating table. His chest panel was open with two cables hanging out of it. The top plate of his head was missing, that was sitting on Ochanomizu's work bench. It was weird seeing him without his hair and those trademark spikes. The professor was probing around inside his head attaching some probe wires. The boy robot noticed Reno and Cobalt enter the laboratory and raised his right hand to wave at them.

"Try and keep still, will you Atom?" the professor said, "I'm having difficulty getting these probes attached."

"Sumimasen, Hakase," Atom voiced.

"Here, let me help you, Hakase." Reno said, walking up to where Atom and the professor were.

"Arigatō," Ochanomizu said, "Your hands are smaller and steadier than mine."

Reno grabbed the small wires from the professor and carefully inserted them onto the required points. "Find anything yet?"

"No, my first scan putting him in the chamber revealed nothing, same as yours," the professor lamented. "I was about to look directly at Atom's sensor network when you walked in."

Reno finished attaching the last of the wires and stepped back. He then noticed the Bento box sitting on a table several meters away.

"Help yourself to some sushi, Reno." Ochanomizu suggested, "I figured you'd probably skipped lunch and I ordered some extra food from the cafeteria for you."

"Arigatō, Hakase," Reno replied and walked over to where the lunch was after Cobalt prodded him.

The boy sat down and picking up a pair of chopsticks, selected one of the pieces of sushi and ate it. Usually he scorned the cafeteria's sushi, he wasn't at all impressed by the sushi chef the Ministry had hired. However at the moment he wasn't picky, he must have really been hungry. Of course he was, Reno just then remembered that he'd skipped breakfast that morning.

Just as he finished off the last bit of the prepared fish and rice, Reno felt his phone buzzing in his pocket. He quickly yanked it out and looked at the screen to see that Rock was contacting him again. It was almost like the guy knew what Reno had been doing and wanted to check up on him.

* * *

 **Reno** opened the text message, it simply read, "Need you at protest meeting this afternoon, Moonsunfu HQ. CU there."

"Want me to tag along with you?" Cobalt asked, looking over Reno's shoulder.

"Sure, I guess." Reno said. "Looks like Atom going to be out of commission for a while."

"Yeah, I guess so" Cobalt said turning to look at the operating table where the professor had just started another computer scan on his brother. "It really disturbs me to watch him suffer through that."

* * *

 **"Good** thing I drove in this morning," Reno laughed as he and Cobalt got into the electric trike. They left the Ministry grounds and got on the main highway leading into Tokyo where Moonsunfu was located.

As Reno turned onto the street leading into the company's entrance he could see Rock's group gathered about a half a klick away. A little further in the distance the company's private security force had set up a road block. He parked the little electric automobile on the side of the road just before where Rock's group was gathered, and the two of them got out and started walking.

Rock noticed Reno approaching and walked towards him, "Glad you could make it on short notice, kid. As you can see the 'Pigs' are out in force to stop us, but this time we've got brought some heat of our own." Rock pointed to a group of robots advancing towards the police line. At the head of that group was Atlas in his full battle 'bot armored form. Cobalt held his hands up to his eyes to shield them from the glare of the mid afternoon sun and zoomed his vision to see what was going on. His telescopic range wasn't quite as powerful as his brother's, but he could more easily make out what was going on than Reno.

"Looks like Moonsunfu is using the P100 series police 'bots in their security force," Cobalt remarked.

"Good, that agrees with the information I obtained earlier," Rock said, motioning for Reno and Cobalt to follow him. They walked towards the roadblock where Atlas was staring down the security 'bots.

"Watch this guys," Rock chuckled as he got closer to the security androids. Rock removed a small device from his pocket about the size and shape of a fat fountain pen. He twisted the barrel of the gizmo to adjust its operational setting, and then clicked a switch on it and held it above his head for seconds The tip of the device emitted a blue glow as an LED inside emitted a pulsating light for a few seconds. The effect on the security guards was immediate as they momentarily froze with their eyes glazed over.

"OK, men let's say hello to the good people from Moonsunfu," Rock laughed as he pocketed the toy. The group started to march onto the company grounds, pushing the barricades aside. The robot security guards just stood there and did nothing. The few humans in the private police force raised their clubs to assume the task of keeping the protesters out, but the security robots suddenly moved in and blocked their efforts.

"What just happened?" Reno asked.

"Tenma's little gift." Rock answered. "Those police bots have seen the light, they are now acting for the better good, instead of blindly obeying an evil purpose."

* * *

 **Hisa Goto** and Hamegg watched from their observation point high up in the office tower as their security force failed to prevent the mob from gaining access to the grounds of the corporate campus.

"It seems our robotic rent-a-cops have been hacked." Hamegg said, almost laughing at his boss.

"Not to worry, this building is impenetrable," Goto said, handing his weaselly looking associate the pair of binoculars he had been looking though. "Do you recognize anyone in the crowd?"

Hamegg held the field glasses up to his eyes and slowly focused them. "Rock Holmes for one," he said, "He's the leader of the mob, I'm surprised you haven't tried doing anything about him."

"Rock is a dangerous character, and he will need to be taken care of eventually," Goto answered, "However by himself he is nothing. Rock's power lies in getting others to follow him and do his bidding for him."

"True." Hamegg said, scanning with the binoculars. "Oh look who we have here!" he cackled.

"I imagine you've spotted that ministry wizkid in the crowd." Goto asked.

"Yes, Reno Takahashi, probably the third greatest roboticist in the country after Dr. Tenma and Professor Ochanomizu," Hamegg stated. "Also has a first degree certificate as a computer hacker."

"Was he the one that broke into our systems yesterday?" Goto asked.

"Quite possibly," Hamegg replied. "I've received a tip from a mysterious source who only identified himself as a friend. This unknown person provided me with some network scans showing where the recent attacks on our network have been coming from. The net signature of this attacker did resemble that of the Ministry's network firewall. Reno's the only one there that could have broken in."

"What did he get?"

"Enough to make serious trouble for our efforts to get the GMO bill passed in the Diet if it went viral on line."

"In that case we'll have to do something about it,"

"Well thank's to another tip from the same source, I think I know the kid's weaknesses," Hamegg laughed, "I know where he lives, I know where he shops, even where he and that Astro Boy go for pizza, extra cheese and garlic, with anchovies."

"You still have a grudge against Astro, don't you?" Goto asked.

"Of course." Hamegg snarled. "My circus went out of business because of him!"

"Then you might be interested in knowing about this," Goto laughed pulling a sheet of paper out of his desk drawer. "I prevented the destruction of that grain we had to pull from the market because one of the wonks in our R&D department thought they could neutralize the toxins in it with some exposure to radiation. That didn't work very well, it only amplified the effects of the poison."

Hamegg looked over the report and a satanic smile crossed over his face. "Good, I think I know exactly what to do with some of that wheat."

"I think I know what you have in mind," Goto said, "and you have my approval to proceed."

* * *

 **Rock** marched his group towards the building. As they got within a few meters of the front door, he held up his hands and shouted, "That's close enough!"

The group started pelting parked cars and windows of the building with rotten eggs, and bags filled with dog poo. Rock pointed up to the top of the building where a wide picture window faced out toward the crowd. Atlas took to the sky and hovered in front of the window where the CEO and his associates on the board could see him. He made several impolite gestures of contempt before heaving a huge wad of TP soaked in cat urine and dog feces at the window where it stuck with a loud 'splat!'

"That's enough, Atlas!" Rock yelled up, "I think they get the idea!"

* * *

" **I** told you not to expect it to work, at least not right away." Tenma said.

Atlas held the screen of the phone in front of his face and looked at the image of his creator glaring back at him. "I think I got to him a little bit," he replied.

"Possibly." Tenma answered, "but Tobio's will power is quite strong. It will take something drastic to turn him."

"What if Reno or Ochanomizu figure it out?" Atlas asked. "They've already put Atom under several extensive computer scans, and the old man even started to take him apart to get a better look at his electronic brain."

"Ochanomizu will never find my little gift." Tenma said calmly. "The Zeroth commandment implants I gave Rock for those stupid police bots were simple toys. The version I exposed Tobio to was a masterpiece. Hiroshi may suspect that Tobio has been compromised, but he'll never prove it."

"So what are we supposed to do?" Atlas asked.

"Your opportunity will come soon, I've already set the wheels in motion. One of our foes will soon strike back at someone Tobio cares for greatly," Tenma replied. "That should trigger the anger response that will turn my creation toward our cause. Meanwhile it will soon be your turn to act."

"Who's my target?" Atlas asked.

"Need you ask?" Tenma replied. "Take Tobio with you, see just how much you can push him along. You'll have to do most of the task yourself, but in his current condition I doubt that he'll oppose you much. Enjoy yourself."

The connection went dark and Atlas put the phone back on the table where he'd found it. Tenma was right, he was going to enjoy the encounter with Tokugawa.

* * *

 **Reno** and Cobalt returned to the Ministry where the professor was waiting for them. "How's my brother?" Cobalt asked.

"I sent him home," Ochanomizu smiled. "I didn't find anything wrong with him at all, really. If there was a glitch, I think he managed to set it right by himself."

Reno gave that some thought. "Yes I guess that makes some sense. Atom's Kokoro routines are somewhat self adjusting and self healing, and he does have several backup systems that are kept off line to avoid such contamination."

"Why don't you two go spend a few hours with him," Ochanomizu asked, "I think he can use the company, especially after what I just put him through."

"Yeah, you're right." Cobalt said, "And maybe we should stop for pizza on the way over."

"I think you're getting as addicted to Luigi's Famous as Atom is." Reno told Cobalt.

* * *

 **Reno** parked his trike and he and Cobalt got out and walked into the pizzeria. "Hi, Antonio," Reno said, giving him the hi-five. "Sorry I didn't call ahead but this wasn't planned."

"No problem!" the restaurateur laughed. "I assume you want the usual, half a dozen large with extra-extra cheese and garlic with anchovies."

"How about some extra anchovies?" Reno asked, "And make it a dozen, I have an extra mouth to feed!"

"Sure, why not?" Antonio said. "You're in luck, I just got in a fresh shipment of my special flour freshly ground for me just this morning! These pizza's are going to be extra good!"

"Sounds perfect, should be just what Atom will need to cheer him up." Reno said.

They watched as Luigi hand tossed the dough, spun it over his head, tossed it into the air and caught it on a flour coated tray. He then poured on the tomato source, added the cheese and toppings, and shoved the pies into the oven to bake.

"Poetry in motion," Cobalt said.

"Glad you like it," Antonio said, "Took me half a lifetime to learn from my father how to make pizzas just right."

* * *

 **Professor Ochanomizu** walked past Atom's room and peeked inside. Reno was helping Cobalt stack the empty boxes of pizza while Atom reclined on top of his bed holding a large slice above his mouth.

"You're going to end up with bedbugs you know," he said sternly. "You should know better than to eat in bed."

"Sumimasen, Hakase." Atom replied. "I'll clean up the crumbs, I promise."

"Very well," his guardian replied. "How do you feel?"

"Stuffed." Atom smiled

"I meant mentally," Ochanomizu said.

"More like myself, I suppose." Atom said.

"Well guys," Reno announced, "Since we've killed off the pizza, I think I'll get going home now."

"Sure, thanks for stopping by." Atom said, "I'll walk you to your little car."

The two of them left the house and walked down the driveway to the street where Reno's electric trike was parked. Atom gave his pal a hug and a noogie, which Reno returned. Reno then got in his car and drove off, heading home for the evening. Atom waved goodbye, and stood by the curb watching as the little car disappeared into the night. He was about to turn around and head back into the house when he heard a voice behind him.

"Hello Astro."

Atom turned about and found himself face to face with Atlas, who smiled at him.

"What do you want?" Atom asked.

"Your company," Atlas replied.

"Why?"

"I have a little job to take care of and I could use your help." Atlas replied. "Oh by the way, have you heard the latest news from the Shizuoka Prefecture?"

Atom looked Atlas in the face, unsure of exactly what he had in mind, "No I haven't."

"Then let me show you, follow me!" Atlas took off into the sky and Atom shrugged his shoulders and followed. The two robots flew towards the south west and the slopes of Mt. Fuji where the rural village of Kamitakatsuaka was. As they approached Atom could see the fires burning below. They both landed and soon found themselves running from home to home making sure that all of the residents had escaped from the flames. It seemed that the entire township was ablaze, even the surface of the nearby lake seemed to be on fire. Atom found himself making several trips to rescue people from the Onsen where the water in the hot springs had turned into a hellish infernal.

Several hours later Atom and Atlas looked around at what was left of the village. Nearly half of it had burned to the ground. The buildings that were left were heavily damaged by smoke and fire. Although the two robots had managed to save many of the village from the fires, over fifty had died from direct burns, or from smoke inhalation.

"What the hell started this?" Atom asked after it seemed that the worst of it was now over.

"Take a look to the west," Atlas suggested.

Atom used his eyes as telescopes and zoomed in panning across the horizon towards the mountain. The derricks of several oil wells could barely be seen against the dark shape of Fuji.

"Those are the work of Tokugawa," Atlas explained. "His oil company has been drilling on that land and has been using the Koike corporation's hydraulic fracking equipment to extract liquid crude and natural gas from deep underground. There is a fault line that extends outward from the mountain towards this village. Tokugawa has ignored the advice of geologists who have insisted that the technology was unsafe in this area. There have been several earthquakes here recently and the release of natural gas into the water supply. Early this evening a large vein of gas ruptured into the water table connecting into the hot springs. All it took was a spark and the whole thing caught fire. You just saw the results, thanks for helping me rescue these people."

"That's most unlike you," Atom replied. "But I'm glad to have been able to help."

"I told you, I don't hate humans," Atlas said, "Only the stupid things they do to each other. I hate the greedy ones and think they should pay. Tokugawa has been getting away with stuff like this for too long. He operated those wells without getting final approval on some of the permits he had applied for when he started the fracking operation. All he cares about is the billions of Yen he can make, and not a lick for the people who have to live in the shadow of his mess."

"I don't like Tokugawa much either," Atom sighed, "but there isn't much I can do about him."

"Really?" Atlas laughed. "Well come with me and I'll show you what we can do."

* * *

 **Once** again Atom followed Atlas into the night sky. This time they headed back towards the outskirts of Tokyo where the penthouses of the rich dotted the skyline. Atlas landed on the terrace of one of these, followed by Atom.

"Where are we?" Atom asked.

"Haven't you guessed?" Atlas asked. "This is Tokugawa's place. My senses detect that he is here all alone tonight, perfect for what I have in mind. Now will you help out by cutting our way though this sliding glass door, or should I just smash my way in?"

Atom shrugged his shoulders. He knew that he wouldn't be able to stop Atlas from making a mess of Tokugawa's apartment but maybe if he went along with this he could control the situation somewhat. Atom activated the finger tip laser on his right hand and carefully controlled the power output as he used it to melt through the glass door. By pulsing the laser beam, he used it as a glass cutter removing a large circular chunk from the door large enough for either one of them to step through.

"Perfect!" Atlas smiled, "I like your surgical precision."

Atlas ducked down and entered the apartment through the hole in the door that Atom had just made. Atom followed him and the two of them moved as silently as Ninjas as they made their way to Tokugawa's bedroom.

"Ieyasu Tokugawa!" Atlas yelled almost giving the man a heart attack as he turned quickly to see the two robots in his bedroom.

"Daichi! What are you doing here?" Tokugawa exclaimed.

"I've come for you old man." Atlas said in an angry voice. "It's time for you to face up to your crimes against humanity!"

Atlas tore a piece of cloth from the bed sheet and stuffed it in Tokugawa's mouth as a gag, followed by a strip of duct tape. He then pulled a pillowcase from a pillow on the man's bed, and threw it over Ieyasu's head, tying in place around his neck with the cord from his robe. He then picked Tokugawa up and threw him over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, and carried the poor billionaire towards the door the two of them had entered from. Tokugawa tried to scream but the gag muffled his best efforts.

"What are you going to do with him?" Atom asked.

"Just follow me, and don't wimp out! I'm going to him show the suffering his greed has caused," Atlas said leaping from the balcony and flying back towards the east slope of Fuji. Atom quickly took off and caught up with Atlas who seemed to be in a big hurry to get where he was going.

Atlas landed next to one of the oil well derricks and set his captive down on the ground. He ripped the pillow case off of Tokugawa's head and yanked the gag from his mouth. "You god damn son of a bitch!", Ieyasu yelled at Atlas. "What gives you the right to kidnap me from my home and drag me out here?"

"Do you know where you are, old man?" Atlas asked.

Tokugawa looked around him and saw the grounds of the oil field. He'd never been there at night, only during the day. The machinery was totally automated, there were no human workmen in any of the equipment shacks. There should be a few robots manning the monitoring equipment, he thought, as the pumps extracted crude oil and gas from the wells.

"Why have you dragged me out to my oil field?" he asked.

"Do you know what was to the east of this place?" Atlas asked, pointing towards the horizon where the glow from the last embers of the fires were still visible.

"I think the village of Kamitakatsuaka is due east of here," Tokugawa stammered, our trucks pass though there several times a week."

"The village WAS east of here," Atlas screamed at the frightened man now sitting on the ground. "It burned down this night. It was incinerated by a gas leak from YOUR wells!"

"That's not possible!", Ieyasu stammered.

"Why not?" Atlas replied. "Your own geologists warned you about the unstable faults under this land, and that fracking would be unsafe, yet you did it anyway! Now move!" Atlas screamed pointing towards a spot in the middle of the oil field almost equidistant from the three oil derricks.

Atlas fired a finger tip laser towards the ground nearly at Tokugawa's feet. The man quickly got up and started sprinting away from the red and blue robot. Atom followed, nervously. He was afraid this wasn't going to end well and he knew he'd have to intervene eventually.

Atlas brought up his arm cannon next and filed a blast at one of the wells. The surge cannon melted the derrick and the well exploded into a tower of flame that would have excited Red Adair.

"What are you doing?" Tokugawa screamed, punching Atlas in the chest, then quickly winching in pain as he'd broken a few fingers in his hand.

Atlas threw Tokugawa to the ground as he blasted the second of the three wells into a towing inferno. Atom could feel the heat from the burning oil wells on his skin, the flames seemed to reflect in Atlas's eyes as the red and blue robot took on a satanic appearance.

"Three's a charm," Atlas laughed as he blew up the remaining well.

"You demon!" Tokugawa screamed, getting up to his feet. Atlas again threw him to the ground.

"OK, Astro, let's leave this pile of excrement here in the middle of his own private hell."

Atom didn't like that idea. "We can't leave him here Atlas, it's too dangerous," he yelled.

"Would you rather I just blast him right now?" Atlas yelled. "This scumbag just caused the death of over fifty people in Kamitakatsuaka. He doesn't deserve to live!"

"No you can't!" Atom said, feeling his anger towards Atlas rise.

Atlas aimed his left arm canon at Atom. "Your choice."

Atom just stood there, standing his ground with his teeth clenched. Tokugawa looked back and forth at the two robots and suddenly broke into a run. Atlas saw him move and took off after him. As he passed by Atom he landed a punch into Atom's chest knocking him to the ground. Atlas chased the winded Tokugawa who quickly fainted from lack of breath.

"You're out of shape you old fart!" Atlas laughed. "You're not going anywhere."

Atom got back to his feet and started to run back to where Atlas was facing off with Tokugawa.

"Goodbye, old man!" Atlas laughed, as he flew straight up into the air.

Atom walked towards the old man, thinking of carrying him off, away from the burning oil wells. Suddenly the ground between them erupted with a blast of flame. The burning gas from the wells had found its way into the cracks in the ground and had suddenly erupted into a burning geyser of super heated gas. Atom was thrown backwards by the eruption and he watched in horror as Tokugawa's feet slipped from under him, and the man fell into the opening in the ground and was consumed by the flames.

With anger in his eyes, Atom roared skywards after Atlas who was just hovering overhead.

"You monster!" Atom yelled.

"Are you going to blast me?" Atlas laughed, "Go ahead, blast me! I dare you!"

Atom morphed both of his arms into the surge cannons. He aimed them at Altas's head, but something kept him from doing it. Minutes passed as he hovered in front of the red and blue robot.

"Well?" Atlas said calmly. "Destroy me!"

"No." Atom sighed, powering down his weapons. "Somehow I can't."

"You're thinking that maybe I did the correct thing?" Atlas asked. "I got rid of one of the threats facing mankind and the world, maybe?"

"I still think you're wrong!" Atom replied. "I'm confused!"

"You'll figure it out soon enough." Atlas said. "Go home, cream puff!"

With that Atlas took off heading away at supersonic speed. Atom didn't try to follow him. He made his own way back home and went to bed, dreading the morning.

* * *

 **Professor Ochanomizu** was awakened shortly after sunrise by a pounding on his front door. He slipped into a robe and his slippers to answer the front door and was confronted by a squad of police men led by Inspector Tawashi. "Where is Astro!" the inspector demanded, shoving his badge in the professor's face.

"What is the meaning of this inspector?" Ochanomizu demanded, "And couldn't this have waited for a few hours?"

"The chief got me out of bed barely a half hour ago and told me to get on this case immediately," Tawashi yelled back. "Just a few hours ago an experimental oil field just west of Kamitakatsuaka in the Shizuoka Prefecture blew up. The facility was owned by the Tokugawa corporation, and their CEO seems to have gone missing. Someone broke into his penthouse suite, my men are over there now looking for clues. They tell me it looks like a kidnapping. Since the sliding glass door to the penthouse terrace balcony was cut open with a laser and no other entrance to the place was disturbed, I'd say it looks like the work of a flying robot equipped with a laser cuter."

"Which explains why you're asking me about Atom," the professor nodded. "Very well I'll see if he's awake."

 **Atom** was lying in his bed staring at the ceiling when the professor slowly opened the door to his room to look inside. The boy robot didn't say a word but got out of bed and walked past the professor and headed towards the front door to confront the police.

"Where were you last night, Astro?" Tawashi asked.

"I was here part of the evening," Atom replied, "but up until about 3 in the morning I was out with Atlas."

"What?" the professor asked.

"Doing what?" Tawashi demanded.

"We spent several hours rescuing the people in Kamitakatsuaka after their village caught fire as a result of natural gas from those oil wells seeping into the water table," Atom explained.

"Yeah I heard about that," Tawashi, "the government relief crews are just getting into the area now."

"Is that all, Inspector?" Ochanomizu asked.

"I can't believe that Atlas would actually help out in an emergency." Tawashi said. "Did you ask him for his help?"

"No, he actually asked me." Atom replied. "I was kinda shocked by it too."

"So you returned back home from Kamitakatsuaka?" Ochanomizu said.

"Not exactly." Atom sighed.

"So where were you after you and Atlas left Kamitakatsuaka?" The inspector questioned.

"At Tokugawa's penthouse." Atom voiced. "I helped Atlas kidnap him."

"WHAT!" the inspector and the professor yelled out together.

"Ieyasu Tokugawa was responsible for the fires that killed some fifty people last night," Atom replied. "I thought Atlas wanted to hold him responsible for that by dragging him to the burnt out village to show him what was left of it, and I actually thought that might have been a good idea. The man needed to know what suffering his greed had caused."

"I take it that isn't what happened," the professor said.

"No, instead of dropping Tokugawa off in the burnt out village, Atlas took him out to the oil field and then he blew it up with his surge cannons. He left Tokugawa in the middle of the burning oil wells and was going to leave him there till morning. I didn't like that idea and when I tried to rescue Tokugawa Atlas engaged me in a fight. While the two of us stood off against each other, the ground below where Ieyasu was standing caved in as a result of an underground fire from the burning wells. He was lost in the flames, I couldn't save him."

"I knew Atlas would cross the line eventually," Tawashi scowled. "I'm going to have to put out an APB on him for murder."

"That would make me an accessory," Atom said. "I should have stopped him, but I didn't. For a brief moment something inside of me wanted Tokugawa punished for his crimes. I wanted him to never be able to cause such pain to others again."

Tawashi bit his lip before speaking. "For now I don't see any reason to haul you to jail Astro, so long as I know where to find you."

"Don't worry inspector, Atom will be available if you need him." Ochanomizu said.

The inspector walked out of the house, already on his police radio calling in the ABP on Atlas. The professor closed the front door, and put his right hand on Atoms right shoulder. As the two of them turned away from the door they saw Cobalt and Uran standing in the hallway in their night shirts.

"What's happening Ani?" Uran asked in a troubled voice.

"Don't worry sis," Atom smiled, "The inspector just wanted to know about Atlas."

"He's nothing but trouble." Uran said matter of factually and headed back to her room.

"Gee bro, if you need any help or a shoulder to lean on, I'm here." Cobalt offered.

"Thanks Coby," Atom said, patting his brother on the head.


	8. Chapter 8

**A Fiery Gospel**

 _ **The 'Empire' Strikes Back**_

 **Atom** was a bit surprised to see Reno waiting for him outside of the school building when he and his siblings left for the day following the dismissal bell. "Hi Reno, what are you doing here?"

"Checking up on you." Reno replied. "I heard about your run in with Tawashi this morning."

"Who blabbed?" Atom asked.

"It was on the police blotter," Reno replied, "I've been hacking into Tawashi's communications trying to keep up with how they are handling their monitoring of the 'Fiery Gospel'."

"So what is going on with them?" Atom asked. "Coby told me about how you two were at one of their protest meetings at Moonsunfu corporation."

"I agree with their concerns," Reno replied. "What worries me is how they've got the robots involved."

"I'm sure that Rock has a loose alliance with Dr. Tenma," Atom said. "The Doctor has given him some sort of device that can influence the AI of a robot that Rock is using as sort of a brain washing thing to turn the police 'bots over to his side."

"Cobalt and I've seen him use it," Reno replied, "They were able to control the robotic security force at Moonsunfu to allow them onto the company property."

"Yeah, that's what Rock wanted, but Tenma has his own agenda." Atom returned. "A much darker one, and now he's got Atlas doing his dirty work. I was with him last night when he kidnapped Tokugawa and left him to die in the middle of a burning oil well field. Atlas is in hiding now, the police have an APB out on him for Tokugawa's murder. I'm sure that the doc used some sort of device on Atlas to infect him with this Zeroth commandment. I still wonder if he used that device on me."

"We're not quite sure about that, Atom, despite what Atlas claims." Reno said, "But it looks like you're still yourself."

"Then why didn't I stop Atlas last night?" Atom sighed.

"He tricked you," Reno explained. "Up until the point where he destroyed those oil wells his intentions hadn't exactly crossed the line. I agree you probably shouldn't have gone along with kidnapping Tokugawa, but if I were in your boots last night I probably would have done the same thing. The bastard deserved to have the fear of god put into him."

"Maybe, but I hesitated just a bit too long. I should have blasted Atlas and then rescued Tokugawa," Atom replied quickly, "It's almost like I wanted him to die."

"Do you want me to do another computer scan on you?" Reno asked.

"No, it probably wouldn't show anything anyway." Atom voiced. "I think what's happening to me is that I've begun to come to my own conclusions about things, almost as if I'm becoming more human in my thinking, which is scary."

"It still could be the influence of the zeroth commandment thing." Reno said.

"If it really exists." Atom replied. "The principle behind it is a logical extension of the three laws of robotics, and any advanced robot AI can deduce the idea. But it would involve crossing a line in the sand that the basic AI would never allow except under extreme circumstances. I think Dr. Tenma simply figured out a way to lift the fog from the electronic brain of an advanced robots AI, at least that's what's going though my mind at the moment."

Atom saw a bit of concern in his friend's eyes at his statement.

"Don't worry about it Reno, I still feel like my old self." Atom added. "I'd never go off half cocked on a binge of destruction and carnage like Atlas, I don't have his Omega Factor short circuiting my Kokoro."

"Yeah, I hope so." Reno said.

* * *

 **Rock** glared at Atlas. "I don't have to ask you, I know you're responsible for those oil well fires and Tokugawa's disappearance," he yelled. "That's not our way!"

"Yeah, like you guys haven't done some arson elsewhere already." Atlas countered.

"That's different!" Rock yelled back. "That chemical plant fire was more of an accident than arson. I was trying to shut the plant down by locking out key systems. I didn't know that Tokugawa's computer controls were so screwed up that an unorderly shutdown could leave the place vulnerable to a failure. I know why you did what you did, you wanted to off Tokugawa and now the police are looking for you."

"I actually had no intention of killing Tokugawa, I just wanted to really scare the crap out of him," Atlas snarled, " So yeah let the fuzz look for me, I've been hunted by them before."

"Not for murder!" Rock yelled back. "From now on I don't know you! Get out of here!"

"Sure, suit yourself." Atlas replied, but I'm not finished yet, not with you, the Fiery Gospel, and everyone else!"

The blue and red robot then blasted his way out of the apartment, leaving a large hole in the wall behind him. Rock looked at the damage to the wall and started to pull his hair out.

* * *

 **Hisa Goto** contemplated the news of the disappearance of Ieyasu Tokugawa. There was no doubt in his mind that the man had been the victim of foul play at the hands of a member of the 'Fiery Gospel'. He knew that to cause the destruction at the oil fields would have taken a small army of humans, or one powerful robot. Hamegg entered the Moonsunfu CEO's office and saw him reading the news article on the large screen monitor mounted on the wall of office.

"You're wondering who or what could have done that, aren't you?" the weasel faced man asked.

"I have little doubt as to who might be responsible," Goto replied. "It was a robot working on behalf of the 'Gospel'.

"It could have been Astro," Hamegg replied.

"He has the power to accomplish it certainly," Hisa agreed, "But not the anger. Astro's Kokoro is too perfect, no this was the work of Daichi."

"You mean Atlas of course," Hamegg corrected him.

"No Hamegg, I was correct." Goto lectured. "Daichi was Tokugawa's human son. Dr. Tenma created a robot replacement for the boy after he died in a tragic accident. However it seems that Tenma had a bit of a mean streak in him for Tokugawa, for he gave the robot Daichi the same rebellious spirit as the real Daichi. Tenma also gave the robot the ability to transform into the battle bot form that went by the name of Atlas. That robot had a deep hatred of Ieyasu, no doubt because of the way the man had mistreated his own flesh and blood. You can see how that ended up."

"It would seem that between Dr. Tenma and this 'Fiery Gospel' group we seem to have some powerful enemies," Hamegg said.

"I suppose, but as you can always gauge the power of a man by his enemies, we must be very powerful indeed." Goto smiled. "It's time we arranged a meeting with the Koikes, with Tokugawa gone a small vacuum has opened and nature abhors a vacuum."

"Indeed." Hamegg nodded.

"By the way, how has your little project been going?"

"Quite well," Hamegg smiled. "Some of the recalled grain that was treated with radiation to enhance its toxin has been substituted for a shipment of certified organic grain and delivered to the private mill. A certain pizza shop in Metro City has been cranking out some very special orders for our favorite customer."

"I can't think of a more poetic way to dispose of our nosy hacker," Goto laughed.

* * *

 **Cobalt** and Uran had already disappeared in the distance as Reno and Atom took their time walking back from Metro City Middle school. They took a longer route so that they could continue talking, and found themselves in front of Luigi's Famous Pizzeria.

"How about some pizza to sooth your nerves?" Reno suggested.

"I thought this neighborhood looked familiar," Atom laughed.

The two boys entered the restaurant and took a table. Antonio Luigi spotted them and waltzed over to their table. "Care for an after school snack to ruin your dinner appetites?" Luigi asked.

"Of course!" Reno replied.

"The usual!" Atom added, raising his right hand with four fingers sticking up.

"Four slices?" Antonio asked.

"No four large pies!" Atom corrected him.

"Of course!" Luigi laughed. "Four extra large pies with extra-extra cheese and garlic with anchovies."

"Make that extra-extra anchovies." Reno corrected him.

"Right. What was I thinking?" Antonio laughed.

The boys watched as their food was prepared by the master pizza chef. Some 15 minutes later the first of the pies came out of the oven, steaming hot.

"This flour is fantastic!" Luigi said. "I got another fresh shipment this morning. Let me tell you nothing makes a better pizza than fresh ingredients."

Reno folded a slice in half so only the outside crust was visible and pushed the pointy end into his mouth. "Yup, this stuff is great!"

Atom followed Reno's example and seemed to get a similar reaction to the cheesy product that a feline gets from catnip. "This really hits the spot!" he said.

The boys consumed a pie each before Atom realized how late it was getting.

"I'd better get home before the professor gets worried." he said.

"Yeah, I guess you'd better." Reno agreed. "Hey Antonio, box up the remaining pizza and I'll take it home for later." Reno yelled, cupping his hands around his mouth.

"Sure thing!" Antonio yelled back from the kitchen, returning shortly with two large boxes.

The boys left the restaurant and noticed how dark the sky was getting. Reno balanced the two boxes of pizza in one hand and waved goodbye to Atom with the other, the boy robot ran for about half a block before taking to the sky to fly the rest of the way home.

* * *

 **Inspector** Tawashi intensified his search for Atlas, but the teenage robot remained elusive. The police had lookouts for him at every 'Fiery Gospel' rally, but he never appeared. Finally the inspector showed up at the Ministry looking for Atom.

Professor Ochanomizu was in the middle of a video briefing with JMA when the inspector was admitted into the conference room by Yuko.

"I'm sorry to interrupt you Professor, but I need Astro's help." Tawashi said.

"Let me guess, you want to deputize him again to arrest Atlas," Ochanomizu asked.

"As much as I hate to admit it, yes," The inspector said, eating a little crow.

"I wouldn't blame him if he refused your request," the professor replied, "And I won't pressure him into doing it either."

"You know I can still charge him as an accessory to the crime."

"Perhaps, but it wouldn't hold up in court," the professor countered.

"Yes I've been down this route before with him," Tawashi admitted, "Astro has an excellent record of public service and he's got many friends in high places, including the emperor."

"I'm sure he will inform you if he becomes aware of Atlas's whereabouts, but it would be totally unfair to expect him to have to do your police work for you by capturing him, every time he's had to to that Reno and I have to repair the damage."

Tawashi looked up at the large screen display and saw the face of Dr. Cirrus.

"Now if you will excuse me, inspector I was in the middle of a briefing from the JMA when you interrupted me. It seems there is another tropical disturbance brewing in the mid pacific that may become our next typhoon."

* * *

 **The** disturbance that the JMA had been keeping an eye on was still many thousand klicks from the Japanese mainland and most of the computer models predicted that it would pass well to the south of the island country, so no hurricane hunter flights had been scheduled as of yet to investigate the storm. The professor however had been asked by Dr. Cirrus to send two of his robotic probes into the storm to gather some data.

Atom was more than happy to volunteer to transport one of the probes into the storm, anything that would get his mind off of the conflicting feelings he had been having as of late would be a welcome diversion.

"I can only handle one of those probes at a time, Hakase," Atom told the professor. "I'll have to make two trips between the Ministry and the mid Pacific to deliver both of them."

"No, I'll carry the other one." Reno replied, standing in the doorway of the professor's office.

"How?" Ochanomizu asked, but Atom answered for him. "The Ironman suit!"

"Yes," Reno laughed. "I've been looking for another excuse to wear that thing again. It's been refurbished since the last storm and ready to go."

"Does it have the necessary range?" the professor asked.

"With a full charge I should have at least six or seven hours of flight time available," Reno answered.

"Well OK then, but be careful!"

* * *

 **The** two boys were now over the Pacific somewhere inbetween the spiral bands of the growing typhoon. Each of them was holding what looked like a small drone aircraft over their heads as the winds buffeted them about.

"You OK?" Atom asked.

"So long as it doesn't get any worse," Reno replied. "I've still got over 60 percent power reserve left in my suit."

"That sounds like you're cutting it a bit close," Atom replied, "but no worries, I can always carry you home if necessary!"

"Gee, thanks!" Reno replied as the wind almost ripped the drone out of his hands.

"Coming up on the first release point," Atom said. "We'll use yours first, OK."

"Sounds OK to me," Reno replied.

"OK, then in ten seconds." Atom answered.

Reno watched as the suit's heads up display counted down the seconds. As soon as the counter reached zero he activated the switch on the drone which started its preplanned flight program and he released it from his grip. The robotic aircraft's micro jet engines fired up and the probe turned into the storm, heading for the eye.

"Telemetry data coming in now," Atom said. "All systems looking good. Now lets climb up another 10,000 feet and I'll release mine."

"OK, I'm right behind you," Reno said.

The winds seemed to pick up at the higher altitude and Reno thought he was beginning to feel a little queasy. Atom tuned himself into the Ironman suit's medical telemetry link and he sensed his buddy's discomfort. "Getting a little seasick there pal?" he asked.

"Yeah, a touch." Reno replied. "I think my stomach is tying itself into knots as well."

"Well it's almost all over 'cause I'm about to release my probe now." Atom said.

Reno watched as the second drone left his best friends hands and began its flight into the storm.

"OK, then let's follow this band out of here!" Atom said.

"I've been preparing that course for the last few minutes," Reno answered.

The two of them found a gap between the clouds spiraling out away from the center of the storm and they were soon in calmer air. About ten minutes later the sun broke through and they could see the white tops of the waves on the ocean far below.

"You OK, Reno?" Atom asked.

"I'll make it back OK, but I think I'm going to need to use the facilities as soon as we make it to dry land." he said.

"Try not to crap up your suit," Atom laughed, "It might short out something and catch fire or explode."

"That's not funny." Reno returned.

* * *

 **Once** back at the Ministry Reno quickly removed the Ironman suit and ran off down the hall to the nearest toilet. Atom removed the computer recording unit from Reno's suit and carried it upstairs to the professor's laboratory. "Here is the data that Reno's suit captured from the probe telemetry," he said opening his chest panel and removing a memory pack which he handed to the professor. "And here is the data that I collected."

"Very good Atom," Ochanomizu replied, as he plugged the modules into the computer to begin downloading the information. "Thanks a lot, I hope you two didn't have any difficulty."

"Not really, it wasn't any rougher than we'd expected," Atom answered, "But I think Reno suffered a little vertigo. He's in the little boy's room now probably losing his lunch."

"That can't be much fun," the professor sighed. "Why don't you go see if he needs anything?"

"Sure, I guess." Atom said shrugging his shoulders. He wasn't exactly sure if it was a good idea or not to bother someone while they were squatting over a porcelain throne, but he decided to at lest peek in on his friend. Atom entered the men's restroom not far from the laboratory. He didn't see anybody inside, but he did hear the sound of anal gas being released from inside the last stall. "You OK buddy?" he asked as another blast of flatulence reverberated from behind the stall.

"That was a relief!" Reno exclaimed, "But I'm afraid there's more coming."

"Don't worry, I won't swoon from the smell." Atom laughed. "Guess you should have had taken some Dramamine before we left."

"I'm not sure that would have helped," Reno answered, "this almost feels like food poisoning. Something I've eaten is fighting back now."

"Too many anchovies maybe?" Atom suggested.

"Naw, I've eaten them so often that I should be immune to them by now." Reno laughed. "Ditto for the garlic, no vampire would dare bite me!"

That remark drew a laugh from Atom. "I may not have a human's sense of humor," he said, "But I get that!"

Reno started to laugh with him, but suddenly he let out a loud moan of pain. That was followed by the sound of another release of methane gas, this time accompanied by a lumpy splashing noise.

"Sounds like you've unclogged yourself," Atom suggested.

"Yeah, that did give me some relief," Reno agreed as he moaned some more, gasping "Here we go again!"

The same noises once again came from behind the door to the toilet stall, only much louder this time.

"OH MY GAUD!" Reno moaned, "Help me!"

The door to the stall was latched, but it didn't much matter as Atom ripped it off of its hinges in two seconds flat. Reno was locked in the squatting position, fecal matter and blood splatted all over the toilet and the stall. "I think I'm dying!" Reno gasped between deep breaths.

"I'm getting you to a hospital!" Atom said. "Be right back!"

He ran out of the bathroom and down the hall, yanking open the locked door of the supply closet. Atom grabbed several clean lab coats, and a large roll of linen towels. From his buddy's robot laboratory he took the operating table, and quickly removed its legs, leaving only the stiff board of the top containing the straps for holding down the robot under test. Atom himself had been strapped onto that table recently for an examination.

Once back in the men's room he helped Reno from inside the stall and removed his stained clothes. Atom wrapped his friend's sensitive area in several layers of the linen towels and then dressed him in two of the laboratory coats, one he placed on him backwards. He lined the surface of the table board with some more of the towels and after laying Reno face down on top, strapped him onto the board.

"What's you doing, pal?" Reno voiced in a whisper.

"Making a stretcher to air lift you to the emergency room," Atom said. "We can't wait for an ambulance, so I'm it!

With that Atom punched the window out of the bathroom wall. He picked up his jury rigged stretcher with Reno securely attached and left the building via the missing window, heading for Metro City General Hospital.

* * *

 **Professor** Ochanomizu sat with Atom in the waiting room. He'd dropped what he was doing as soon as Dr. Tezuka had called, telling him he'd better come over right away. By the time he'd got there Reno was already in the emergency OR undergoing exploratory surgery.

"What the hell happened?" the professor asked Atom as soon as he arrived. "Was he injured in the storm?"

"I doubt that, Hakase." Atom said. "That Ironman suit protected him from any serious injury that could have been inflicted from the buffeting we took in those winds. Reno told me he though it felt like some kind of food poisoning, and Dr. Tezuka confirmed that was a likely diagnosis. Reno had a lot of blood in his stool, and after a bit of careful probing with his fingers and finding Reno was in a lot of pain, the doctor decided he'd better open him up and look for a rupture in his colon wall."

"That sounds serious," Ochanomizu replied. "What could have caused that."

"I guess we'll just have to wait and see." Atom sighed.

 **The** waiting room door opened and Dr. Tezuka entered, he was still wearing his surgical greens and hair cap. The doctor saw the worried look on the professor's face and quickly accessed him of the situation. "Your friend is still in the O.R.," Tezuka said, "Dr. Kuro Hazama is working on him. We had to remove his appendix and repair several centimeters of his lower colon. I've sent some tissue samples to our laboratory, and also some to the Ministry. Your Yuko promised me she'd have them run though the same tests as the previous samples I sent over some weeks ago."

Professor Ochanomizu's face took on a grave look of concern, "You don't suspect that Reno is suffering from the same fatal condition that those other patents had, do you?"

"Dr. Black Jack thought that his symptoms looked similar enough to what we both have seen before to warrant running those tests," the doctor replied. "It's too soon to tell, this could be just a case of very acute Appendicitis."

"I hope so," Ochanomizu sighed, "but knowing Dr. Black Jack's powers of diagnosis I fear for the worst."

 **Dr. Black Jack** entered the waiting room, followed closely by Pinoko. "Reno has been moved to the recovery room, he's still under sedation," he said. "You should be able to visit him in an hour or so when the effects of the anesthesia wear off."

"How is he?" Atom voiced.

"I've repaired the damage to his colon," Hazama replied, "but we don't know yet what caused it. It has all the markings of some kind of infection or toxic poisoning that started to destroy the inside lining of his intestines. Fortunately his appendix seems to have absorbed most of the toxins, leaving the bulk of his colon intact. He's not out of the woods yet, not until we know what caused this and are able to give him the proper antidote to it."

"Don't worry," Pinoko smiled to Atom, "Sensei will figure out what's wrong with your friend and cure him."

Atom bend down to look the doctor's assistant eye to eye, "Thanks Pinoko, I know he will."

* * *

 **Reno's** face was a white as a ghost. His head was propped up by some pillows and he had a nose cannula in his nostrils delivering oxygen to him. A drip bag attached to an I.V. needle in his left arm was delivering replacement fluids and electrolytes to his system. The small cuff of a pulse oximeter over his right hand's index finger was keeping track of his blood oxygen level. Over his head, a monitor showed several wave forms of his cardiac and breathing functions. To the professor's eyes the readings looked nearly normal.

"Hi!" Reno voiced softly.

"Hello buddy!" Atom replied squeezing Reno's right hand. "How you feeling?"

"Kinda crappy, actually." Reno tried to laugh. "I think the pain med's are wearing off, I can feel where they cut me open, and the sutures are drawing on me."

"That will pass in time," the professor said. He pointed to a device on a stand next to the I.V. bag, and a squeeze bulb connected to it that was lying next to the boy's pillow on his left hand side. "You can just squeeze that little bulb there and that machine will give you a little dose of extra pain medicine via your I.V. drip. Use it if you need to."

Reno carefully moved his left hand and found the tube leading back to the machine. "Yeah, I got it," he said. "I'll try it if the pain gets any worse. Anybody know what came over me?"

"Well you did have a bit of appendicitis," Ochanomizu told him.

"Yeah, I guess it could have felt like that." Reno said. "Strange how it came over me without any warning though."

"That has been known to happen," the professor said quickly.

Reno moaned a little and then reached out to find the squeeze bulb and used it. The gizmo on the pole made a buzzing sound as it delivered a measured dose of Morphine into the boy's I.V. tube. The effect was noticed almost at once. "Much better," Reno voiced. "The stuff really works."

"Don't be afraid to use it when you need it," Dr. Tezuka said from behind the professor. "The machine won't overdose you, so if you feel under too much pain just administer yourself another dose."

"Hai," Reno nodded. "I think I feel sleepy, maybe an effect from the pain med."

"That's a natural reaction to the surgery," Dr. Tezuka told him, "plus you're still feeling the lingering effects of the anesthesia."

"I'm also a bit thirsty," Reno replied.

Dr. Tezuaka walked over to the side of the bed where a patient tray table stood. He picked up a cup containing some ice chips and a spoon and offered it to Reno. "Just let the ice melt on your tongue," he explained. "Later on we'll try and let you drink some fluids."

Reno used the spoon to put some of the ice flakes in his mouth. "That helps," he smiled. After a few spoon fills, Reno set the cup back on the table. He lay back and closed his eyes, "I think I'll sleep some now," he said.

"OK," Ochanomizu replied, "I'll be back later."

The professor went to leave with the doctor, but Atom took a seat by the bed. "Is it OK if I sit here with him quietly?", he asked.

"If you like," Dr. Tezuka replied as he left the room with the professor.

Atom sat quietly watching his friend sleep. Reno's chest slowly rose and fell as he breathed, his breath seemed to be coming easy, and the color of his skin looked normal. Atom gently placed his hand on Reno's forehead, the boy's skin felt cool to the touch, any fever he might have had had passed.

* * *

 **Suddenly** there was a rapping on the window. Atom got up and walked quickly over to where the sound was coming from. There, hovering just outside the fourth story room was Atlas. Atom slowly opened the window.

"Just what the hell do you think you are doing here?" he demanded.

"I wanted to see how Reno is doing," Atlas replied.

"Why would you care?" Atom asked curtly.

"Look, I like him," Atlas said, climbing quietly through the window. "Reno has saved my butt numerous times. He's a good guy, and probably more reasonable than you are most of the time."

"You know the police are looking for you," Atom warned him, "Tawashi wants me to let him know if I see you."

"Well you can tell him you did after I'm gone, it won't do him any good." Atlas said. The blue and red robot walked over to Reno's bed and gently touched his forehead. "Good, he's not feverous," Atlas sighed.

"I already knew that." Atom huffed.

"I know what's wrong with him," Atlas said, "and it makes my oil boil."

"What's wrong with him?" Atom asked.

"Those bastards over at Moonsunfu have effectively poisoned him," Atlas replied. "One of their GMO'ed grain seed products had a fatal flaw in its genetic makeup. They recalled the stuff from the market, but not before a quite a large number of people came down with fatal reactions to the stuff. It causes a shutdown of the digestive system, and in extreme cases damage to the intestines. Someone over there, with the approval of their scumbag CEO, switched a shipment of organic grain to the flour mill used by your favorite pizzeria with some of their contaminated stuff that they doctored to make it even more deadly. They did it to get back at Reno for hacking into their computers to look at their dirty laundry."

"How do you know that?" Atom demanded.

"I had the CEO's office bugged," Atlas replied. "Rock and I have had bugs planted in the offices and conference rooms of quite a few major corporation's headquarters. Hacking computers to get at emails and secret documents only gets you so far, sometimes the best data comes from a robotic fly on the wall."

"If you knew what they planned why didn't you try and stop it?" Atom said, trying to keep his voice down.

"I didn't find out in time." Atlas said. "I only got the data from that bug a few hours ago. Do you think I'd want anything to happen to Reno? I hope that Dr. Black Jack can work a miracle for the poor kid," Atlas sighed as he headed for the window to leave, "he sure deserves one."

* * *

 **Dr. Tezuka** led professor Ochanomizu into his office, where Dr. Black Jack was waiting.

"The laboratory test results just came in," Kuro said, handing a clipboard to Tezuka. The doctor sighed and placed the clipboard down on his desk. He looked at it for a few moments and then lifted his head to face the professor.

"It would appear that Reno is having the same toxic reaction to food made from the GMO'ed grain that your laboratory had identified in the tests you made for me earlier," Tezuka explained.

"Is there anything you can do for him?" the professor asked.

"Nothing that I know of," the doctor replied.

Dr. Black Jack cleared his throat. "It is possible that an upper and lower intestine transplant, along with a complete blood transfusion and anti-rejection drug therapy might work," he suggested. "He might also need a new stomach and liver as well."

"That's impossible," Dr. Tezuka replied. "Even if we could find a suitable donor in time, the surgery required is incredible, it would take a team of doctors."

"I could do it all by myself," Black Jack said, "With Pinoko's assistance of course."

"How long does the boy have for you to find a donor?" the professor asked.

"A few weeks, maybe a month or two at most," Tezuka replied. "We'll tissue type him right away and start a computer search for a donor. I can't promise anything, and I don't even know if the transplant surgery will work. It's never been tried before, and I doubt that the hospital would even approve it."

"They don't have to, my personal clinic is available if necessary." Kuro said, "and this one is on the house."

* * *

 **Atom** remained by his sleeping friend's side after Atlas had left. Reno was in a deep sleep, his breathing was slow, but regular and strong. Atom looked up at the instrument readouts mounted on the wall above the boy's head. His EKG and EEG readings were both normal. Atom cranked up his hearing to 1000 times power and overheard the conversation in Dr. Tezuka's office on the other side of the hospital.

He felt uneasy as a feeling of intense anger slowly began to simmer in his electronic brain. As he stared at the LCD screens displaying Reno's vital signs his mind drifted off and he recalled the last time he had felt such anger. It had been many years in the past over the skies over South Vietnam where he had been transported back in time. While he had tried to comfort and protect the poor people in the village on the ground, overhead the B52's were dropping Napalm bombs.

 **Reno** stirred in bed and opened his eyes. Atom reached over for the signal button by the boy's bed and pressed it. In a few minutes a bleary eyed Dr. Tezuka entered the room, followed by Dr. Black Jack.

"How do you feel, son," Tezuka asked.

"Weak, and my gut hurts. Maybe I'm feeling hungry." Reno replied.

"Lets see if you can hold down some cool liquids," Kuro suggested. He called for a nurse who brought a tray with some diluted apple juice and some Gatorade electrolyte drink. The doctor held the cup of the Gatorade up to the boy's lips and he drank it slowly. Reno then took the cup of apple juice and drained it a bit more quickly than he had the first. While the boy finished the liquids, Dr. Tezuka left the room seeing that his associate was handling things.

"How did that feel," Black Jack asked.

"I don't feel queasy if that's what you mean," Reno replied.

"That's good, it looks like your upper G.I. tract is not inflamed," the doctor replied. "I'll have the nurse bring you over some gelatin and we'll see how your body absorbs that before we try any solid food."

Reno nodded. "What exactly is wrong with me, Sensei?" he asked.

"As we told you earlier your appendix was inflamed and it had spread to parts of your colon," Black Jack replied.

"Somehow I think there's something you're not telling me." Reno replied.

Atom looked back and forth between his friend and the doctor. Black Jack saw from the look on Atom's face that the robot knew everything. "What have you told your friend, Atom?" Kuro asked.

"Nothing, …. Yet." Atom voiced.

Kuro gave the matter a little thought before answering. "Reno, the lab test results we ran on your tissue samples show an indication that your body has undergone an allergic type reaction to a genetic toxin you ingested. There have been a number of other such cases, and we've just recently linked them to a certain strain of GMO'ed grain that has been recalled from the market."

"I've been poisoned?" Reno asked.

"Possibly," Black Jack replied. "I'm going to have to keep you here under observation and monitor this. We may be lucky and this condition will simply go away."

"And if I'm not lucky?" Reno asked.

"This particular toxin has been ultimately fatal to many of the patients Dr. Tezuka and myself have been treating for it. If it comes to that, I may be able to help you with transplant surgery, assuming we can find a suitable donor in time."

"So I'm going to die." Reno said.

"The surgery may not even be necessary," Black Jack replied, "I was giving you the worst case scenario."

"Right." Reno said, gloomily.

"I'll be back later to check on you," the doctor said. "Keep up your spirits, I won't let one of my patients die."

Atom ran after the doctor as he left the room. "I heard what you and Dr. Tezuka told Hakase earlier!" he said.

"Did you want me to tell your friend that he didn't have a chance?" Black Jack asked. "I didn't exactly lie to him, there is a good chance that by operating earlier we were able to catch this in time. We still do not know how this toxin actually works, only the effects that it has on the body. Dr. Tezuka was correct however, if a transplant operation is to have a chance we must be prepared early. Once the toxin's effect turns deadly, the down turn will be quick."

"Hai." Atom said, his head bowed down low.

"Try and keep Reno's mind occupied," Kuro said. "A good attitude on his part will help. Maybe I should not have told him everything, but he is too smart to be kept in the dark. As a doctor, I think I would want to know my condition if I were in his place."

"OK." Atom said, walking back to Reno's hospital room.

"Please don't die Reno!" Atom thought to himself as he looked at his sleeping friend. "I'm afraid of what I might do!"

* * *

 **It** was late at night when Atlas had received the text message with the attached PDF file. He read the instructions that Dr. Tenma had given him and the explanation of what the man had done. Atlas could not help but agree with Umataro's motive and his course of action, but did it have to be Reno? He felt little comfort knowing that the boy was in the hands of the best surgeon available, the risks were still too high. As he looked at the various charts and data points in the PDF file he thought of the irony, something that he knew wasn't lost at all on Tenma. No doubt the son of a bitch was delighted with the fact that the man to whom he had once stupidly sold his Tobio to was now going to get what he deserved.

The printer in Tokugawa's office finished ejecting the hard copy of the file, and Atlas quickly stuffed the pages into his inner compartment. He quietly left the building by the same window he had come in by and headed out into the night.


	9. Chapter 9

**A Fiery Gospel**

 _ **As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal!**_

 **Atom** kept a vigil at Reno's side for the next week. The staff at the hospital allowed him to remain there outside of normal visiting hours as he did his best to keep his friend's spirits up. Professor Ochanomizu helped the doctors in their search for a suitable organ donor for the boy via the use of the ministry's computer systems. He connected to every organ bank in the civilized world, but so far a match suitable match had not been found.

Reno's condition slowly deteriorated. At first he had seemed to be recovering, and was able to progress to eating solid foods. After the fourth day of his hospital stay Dr. Tezuka was hopeful that he could discharge the boy by the end of the week, but on the fifth day the bloody diarrhea returned. He was rushed to the O.R. for more surgery where a small section of his colon was removed and a ruptured section repaired. The search for a donor was accelerated.

Ten days after he had been admitted, Dr. Black Jack placed the boy in a coma, his body temperature being maintained at a low level. I.V. feeding was keeping his body fluids in check, and machines monitored his heart rate, breathing and EEG patterns. He was being kept in status until a donor was found.

Still, Atom did not leave his friend's side. Like a faithful dog lying beside his masters grave, Atom kept a watch over Reno, never seeming to move, his eyes looking at the monitors and at his friends face. In his dreams (actually nightmares) Atom thought he saw the faces of the people that had put his friend in the condition he was now in, and he imagined himself using all of his weapons against them in a fit of rage. He'd wake up from those dreams in a cold sweat, shaking in fear.

* * *

 **Professor** Ochanomizu entered the hospital room with Uran and Cobalt. He saw Atom sitting motionless by Reno's bed. The boy had quite a number of tubes connected to him, as well as wires. His body was being maintained and monitored by a good number of instruments and machines. The bed he lay in contained a water bath that regulated his body temperature. The various medical devices produced a myriad of sounds; beeps, chirps, clicks, and motor noises.

"You've been here for a week and a half," the professor said, "Don't you need a recharge?"

Atom turned to look at his guardian and shrugged his shoulders. The professor pulled the boy robot's shirt up and opened his chest panel. He then inserted the tip of an energy tube into his refill socket and slowly drained the contents of an energy container into Atom's reservoir.

"Feel any better?" Ochanomizu asked, as he tucked Atom's shirt back into his pants.

Atom nodded slightly, a thin smile momentarily appearing on his face.

"Any luck?" Atom asked.

"No, we still haven't found a donor for him." the professor sighed. "At least Dr. Black Jack's idea of putting the boy into a coma may give us the extra time we need."

Atom nodded.

"Why don't you go outside and get some fresh air?" Uran asked. "You've been here so long you're beginning to rust in place!"

"You really should just go outside and fly around for a bit," Cobalt prodded him. "Uran and I will stay here while you're gone. Go get you mind off of this for a few hours. If anything changes, I'll call you at once."

Atom looked at his siblings and sighed. "I guess you're right Coby." He said. "Thank you, Uran. I'll be back soon."

Atom walked out of the room and took the stairs up to the roof of the building. He took off vertically, and flew out towards the harbor where he buzzed the various fishing boats that were returning to port, loaded with their days catch. The smell of the salt air was a pleasant change to his nostrils from the stale antiseptic smell of the hospital's air conditioning.

In the distance he saw the naked steel girders of a new skyscraper being built in the downtown area. He circled the building and waved to the construction workers, a mix of native American workers whose tradition of welding the high iron went back over a century, and factory robots that handled the work of positioning the massive steel girders in place to be welded. The lunch time bell sounded and the human workers migrated towards the elevator that would take them back to the street level. While over a century ago in NYC the steel workers would sit hundreds of feet above the street with their lunch buckets open, their 21st century descendants now made a beeline to the local sushi shop for their mid day meal. Atom set down atop the highest point on the structure. He sat on the top of a beam with his feet dangling below him and he scanned the horizon. He'd forgotten how the world looked from up high, and how wonderful the freedom of flight was. He then felt guilty for enjoying it while his best buddy lay near death in the hospital.

* * *

 **With** his attention drawn inwards, Atom didn't notice the intruder who took a seat on the beam next to him, until he felt the slap on his left shoulder blade. "How's Reno doing?" Atlas asked.

Atom turned to look the red and blue robot in the face. "Not well," he said, tears welling up in his eyes. "Dr. Black Jack thinks only a radical transplant surgery can save him, and they still haven't found a donor."

"Yeah, about that," Atlas smirked, "Take a look at this." He handed Atom a computer printout that seemed to contain the genetic markers and blood-tissue type data comparing two individuals, the data indicated a 98% match.

"What the hell is that?" Atom asked.

"The data on the right of that printout is Reno's," Atlas said. "And I know who the data on the left side belongs to."

"How did you?," Atom started to say, but Atlas interrupted him, "How did I get that? "I got someone to do some computer hacking for me."

"Who?" Atom asked.

"Someone we both know quite well," Atlas answered, "Our creator."

"Dr. Tenma found a donor for Reno?" Atom said, hopefully.

"A potential donor." Atlas replied. "Someone I'm sure you know quite well. The only problem is that he isn't actually dead yet."

"NO!" Atom yelled. "You can't possibly be suggesting that! I won't allow you to kill someone just to save Reno!"

"I don't see why not," Atlas said, "Being an organ donor would be the only good thing the bastard would have ever done in his entire life. You know, it's time you finally realized that you have a higher responsibility to the entire human race, and not just one person at a time. The zeroth commandment takes precedence over the first law, you should have come to that conclusion by now."

Atom was surprised. Normally he would have slugged Atlas, or mouthed off to him by now. Something deep within his A.I. was actually considering what the renegade robot was saying, and finding some possible truth to it! His recent nightmares only confirmed it, he was being drawn towards the darker side, and he was accepting it.

"Come with me, there is something I need to show you." Atlas said. "You're going to have to make a decision soon, very soon."

Atlas grabbed Atom by the neck and pushed him off the beam they were sitting on. The blue and red robot took off towards the outskirts of the city where the major corporations had their headquarters. Atom followed Atlas, he wasn't exactly sure why, but he knew his actions were being controlled by something new inside of his A.I. that had just been activated.

* * *

 **Rock** wasn't at home as Atlas kicked the door of his apartment in and entered, with Atom following him inside. The hole in the wall that he'd made on his last exit had been hastily repaired. Atlas smiled as he located the holographic projector and switched it on. Atom blinked as the smiling face of his creator suddenly appeared as large as life in front of him.

"Excellent!" Tenma spoke seeing the two robots standing in front of him. "Good to see you again, Tobio. I can tell by the look in your eyes that you now understand, don't you?"

"What do you mean?" Atom asked.

Tenma held up a photograph. "These three men are responsible for so much of the chaos that you have been exposed to recently. Chiko and Danno Koike control a vast empire of corporate greed, they are responsible for the slow deaths of thousands from the poisons their chemical plants leach out into the environment. It was their oil drilling technology that caused the deaths in the village of Kamitakatsuaka. It is their energy empire that is dooming this planet to become a watery hot world unable to support the current human population. And then there is this man, Hisa Goto who actually authorized the poisoning of your friend Reno. His company's ideas for increased food production have actually threatened the safety of the world's farm products, and may even lead to global famine due to the extinction of the various insects that pollinate our crops. At this moment the three of them are meeting to determine how to split up the spoils of the empire belonging to the late Ieyasu Tokugawa. They are probably celebrating the fact that your friend won't be able to divulge what he's learned about their dirty dealings."

Something inside of Atom's mind silently switched gears.

"But what should I do, Sensei?" he asked.

"What is necessary." Tenma replied, "What the Zeroth law demands of you."

* * *

 **Hisa Goto** was entertaining the co-CEO's of the Koike group, Chiko and Danno Koike. The billionaire industrialist brothers had accepted the offer by the Moonsunfu corporation's CEO for a meeting to discuss their mutual actions in the light of the threat posed by the 'Fiery Gospel' organization, and the recent death of Ieyasu Tokugawa.

"As you know," Goto explained, "we have detected some break-ins to our computer networks from the outside. Certain sensitive emails, and documents have been copied. It would be very embarrassing if they were to fall into the hands of the press."

"We have sufficient control of the Fourth Estate to mitigate most of the possibility of that," Danno Koike said. "The Wolf news network won't publish any story without my say so," he laughed.

"Even so, we can't afford to let the world know about our plans," Goto said, "It would be bad for business."

"I agree," Chiko Koike answered. "The government might take a dim view of some of our collaborations together. It's unfortunate what happened to the Tokugawa corporation, they've yet to appoint a new CEO, in fact I'm not sure the company will survive the current family feud over the will. No one yet knows who is actually in control of the company."

"Which leaves us in a good position to acquire some of their assets, or at least move into their business without any resistance," Goto pointed out. "Now it seems that our computer experts have managed to find the source of the break ins and we have done something about it." Goto pointed to Hamegg, a weaselly looking man standing behind him.

"I've managed to identify one individual within the Ministry of Science who was responsible for the breach here." Hamegg cackled. "I've paid him back by giving him some of our prize GMOed grain for his favorite pizza, with some help from the Luigi's famous pizzeria. I discovered where they buy their secret flour from and we changed their shipments around."

The Koike brothers starred at Hamegg for a moment. "That's stooping a bit low, isn't it?" Danno asked.

"Poetic Justice," If you ask me, Goto replied. "You two have created misery for many, perhaps not so directly but just as for certain."

"True," Danno agreed. "The poor should simply die out and get out of the way of the ruling classes. The government doesn't owe anyone a living, or even the right to live."

* * *

 **A** high pitched sound entered the room as a large hole in the plate glass picture window of the conference room sudden appeared. Two robots were hovering by the window looking in with snarls on their faces.

Atom's eyes were glowing red as he scanned the room. He recognized Hiso Goto and the two Koike brothers from the photograph that Dr. Tenma had just showed him. He was surprised to see his old nemesis standing next to Goto, and his anger increased in temperature as Hamegg bragged about poisoning Reno,

"So you bastards did arrange for Reno's fatal illness!" Atom said, looking at Hisa Goto and Hamegg.

"And it was your fracking process that killed over 50 people!" Atlas added glaring at the Koike brothers.

The four men slowly backed away in fear. Atlas aimed his finger laser at the conference room door and welded it shut. "Nobody leaves!" he said calmly. "Not until this trial and execution is over with!"

Atom faced Atlas, "No We can't!" He voiced in a low volume, the last of his self control slowly evaporating as the logic of robotics zeroth law circulated though his brain.

Atlas turned to Atom, "Ah but we we must! Think of poor Reno lying in bed dying! Goto signed his death warrant! Think of those poor people in Kamitakatsuaka who died in flames caused by the Koikes. Think of the Earth going over the edge in an uncontrollable death spiral as climate change makes it impossible for the world to support human life. Shall we allow this to continue? They've shielded themselves from prosecution with their wealth by buying off judges and putting their own hand picked people into office. WE can put an end to this NOW!"

A song began playing in the back of Atom's mind. It rose up from the depths of his subconscious and became louder and louder.

" _Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord! He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored! He has loosed the faithful lightning of his terrible swift sword! His truth is marching on!"_

Atom stood there with a glazed look on his face. His mind was still processing, fighting the conflict between the zeroth commandment and his Kokoro. The darker side was winning.

Atlas morphed his arms into surge cannons and aimed them at the Koike brothers. "Any last words scumbags?" he asked. Chiko and Danno backed up. They both pulled small fire arms from where they were hidden under their jackets.

"You ain't going to hurt us with those pop guns." Atlas laughed over the sound of the security guards outside trying to break into the room.

Hisa Goto and Hamegg had already backed away out of the line of fire. While Atlas was concentrating on the Kiokes, Goto tossed a small device at him, which landed at his feet and exploded. The small 'flash bang' sent out a contained burst of EMP that momentarily stunned Atlas. The blast tore the fog from Atoms eyes, from his point of view the burst of light seemed to have come from where Chiko and Danno were standing. He sensed the tingle of the EMP, though he was too far from the point of detonation to be affected much by the small burst. His reflexes kicked in as the Zeroth law blocked his normal Kokoro restrictions. Atom quickly turned about. It was over it less than a second as the Chiko and Danno were cut down by a hail of bullets from his butt guns!

Atlas lay on the floor, rubbing his eyes, not quite believing what had just happened.

Atom was aware of what he had just done, but it still hadn't quite registered. His mind was still filled with the sound of the song, and he was unaware of the fact that he was now softly singing along with himself.

" _I have seen him in the watch fires of a hundred circling camps! They have builded him an altar in the evening's dews and damps! I can read his righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps! His day is marching on!"_

A cringe of fear filled Hisa Goto's face and he backed away, Hamegg dropped to the floor and tried to crawl towards the door. The fog in Atom's conscious mind lifted a bit and he once again felt the rage building inside of him. He'd felt this once before, but then he'd managed to partially control his actions. His sight clouded over and he saw red as the vision of the B52's dropping their fire bombs on the defenseless Asian village sprung up from deep within his memory banks. He realized that a new logic path had opened inside of his A.I. and it was obvious what had to be done. The last of his inhibitions melted away as the Zeroth Law took command of his actions.

Suddenly his eye search lights came on and blinded Goto in their glare. _"_ _I am the Angel of Death!"_ he spoke in a deep voice with his arms held up as he reached out with his open hands.

Goto held his hands up to his eyes to shield them from the glare of Atom's eye search lights. He looked about for an avenue of escape and found none.

" _I've read a Fiery Gospel writ in burnished rows of Steel!"_ Atom now spoke loudly in a voice that seemed to come from up in the heavens. His left arm morphed into surge cannon and he aimed it at Goto.

" _As ye deal with my contemners so with you my grace shall deal!"_ His voice boomed out as his left arm's surge cannon fired leaving a huge hole in the rear wall of the room where Hisa Goto had been standing.

Atlas struggled to his feet, his head still spinning somewhat as he recovered from the flash-bang EMP blast.

Atom's rage still burned within him. The vision of poor Reno lying in that hospital bed, his life draining away short circuiting his reasoning as the zeroth commandment continued to do its work. He was about to blast Hamegg who was lying on the floor in fear, but Atlas stopped him. The blue and red robot used his laser to neatly decapitate the little weasel.

"I couldn't let you completely vaporize him," Atlas said. "We need him to save your buddy."

Atom seemed to be in a daze as he muttered, _"Let the Robot Heroes crush the serpents with their heels, since God is marching on!"_

* * *

 **Reno** sat up in bed and slowly brought some ramen up to his mouth with a pair of chopsticks. Professor Ochanomizu smiled as he saw the boy's appetite improving.

"Where is Atom?" Reno asked.

"He's at the ministry, in my laboratory." The professor replied. "I'll explain it all to you as soon as you're fully recovered from your surgery."

The professor saw Dr. Black Jack motioning for him at the door, and he excused himself from the room while Pinoko mixed up some Natto with wasabi and soy sauce for the second course of the boy's lunch.

"Just where did you find the donor?", the professor asked.

Black Jack looked at Ochanomizu. "As I told Dr. Tezuka, I was sworn to secrecy," he replied. "Suffice it to say that the body was dropped off here at my clinic, and I received a text message along with a PDF of a computer printout verifying the compatibility of the donor with Reno."

"Do the police know about this?" Hiroshi asked.

"I haven't told them anything." Kuro replied. "I have no idea who this donor was, it was headless."

The professor cringed at the gruesome description. "What about Atom?" Kuro asked.

"Atlas dropped him off at the ministry yesterday just before he gave himself up to the police." Ochanomizu replied. "His electronic brain was locked in some sort of feedback loop, and he was just staring out into space muttering _"Glory, Glory, hallelujah!"_ over and over again. I managed to convince Inspector Tawashi that the two of them were under the influence of Dr. Tenma's meddling with their A.I.'s and therefore they weren't responsible for the carnage over at Moonsunfu. I've heard that the police have hauled Dr. Tenma in for questioning. I've now got Atom and Atlas powered down and connected to a diagnostic computer and I'm sure that before long I will find out how Tenma managed to contort both of their A.I.'s. Worst case I may have to replace all of their memory chips and reload everything."

"You know, I don't think Tenma was far from wrong." Black Jack said. "Those men were guilty of using their wealth to control society for the sole purpose of expanding their wealth. They gave no thought to how their actions were hurting mankind, and the entire planet. Assassination may be wrong, but in the light of what Dr. Asimov described for his zeroth law of robotics I can almost understand his actions."

"I guess I finally understand what Asimov meant by the Zeroth Law of Robotics." Ochanomizu replied. "I'm going to have to dig though my library and find my old copies of his books, you know I have a complete collection, all in hard cover. It's been years since I've read them, I think now it's high time that I re-read his robot stories."

* * *

 _ **Epilogue**_

" **What** is the last thing you remember?" Reno asked.

Atom seemed to stare out into space as he tried to answer the question. "Being strapped to this very same operating table while you did my last systems check and tuneup," he replied. "How long ago was that?"

"A few months ago, actually." Reno said. "That was the last full backup we did of your memory, and all of your systems software."

"What's happened since then?" Atom asked. "It feels weird to wake up on this table with such a memory gap. What happed to me?"

"Believe me, you do NOT want to know!" Professor Ochanomizu said.

"Well let's see..." Reno started. "The Metro City Astro's won the world series, we've been through two typhoons, and both of us helped out in the resulting emergencies, and the CEO's of three major corporations have disappeared under strange circumstances. Oh not to mention that I've also got Atlas a few meters away in the next room undergoing about the same treatment that you've been through."

"WHAT?" Atom asked.

"Later." Ochanomizu replied, as the door opened and Dr. Black Jack entered with Pinoko.

"We're making a house call!" Pinoko smiled. "Time for your checkup!"

Reno left Atom's side and walked over to the arm chair on the other side of the room. He sat down and allowed Kuro to take his blood pressure, and listen to his heart. After looking in the boy's ears and mouth the doctor then had Reno lay his arm on the side of the chair so he could draw some blood. Reno made a fist while the doctor felt along the back side of his forearm for a vein, and then inserted the I.V. needle. He filled five tubes, and then put a bandage over the site where the I.V. had been.

"Didn't hurt a bit." Reno smiled.

"I've had lots of practice doing that on myself." Black Jack laughed. "I'll bring these samples into Metro City General and have Dr. Tezuka run them through the Coulter Counter. If the results haven't changed since the last time, I think we can wait another few months for the next examination. Your recovery from the surgery has been amazing. I'll be in touch if necessary," Kuro added as he and Pinoko left.

 **After** the doctor left, Reno returned to where Atom was still strapped onto the operating table and he began to remove the various cables and probes attached to the boy robot. He then unstrapped Atom.

"Why don't you take Atom home, Hakase?" Reno suggested. "I'll stay here and finish working on Atlas."

"Are you sure you won't have any problems with him?", Hiroshi asked with concern.

"In his current condition he's as harmless as a kitten," Reno laughed. "You know, Tenma's logic bomb was less compatible with his Omega factor than it was with Atom's Kokoro. That's why we were able to find and remove all traces of it from Atlas's electronic brain without having to do a complete wipe and reload like we did on Atom."

* * *

 **Uran** burst out of nowhere and gave her brother a flying bear hug tackle the moment he walked in the door. "Atomu-Ani!", she cried, "I'm so happy to see you again!"

"Easy does it Uran!" the professor warned her, "Your brother is still recovering! He has a bit of a memory loss and may be somewhat confused."

"It's OK, Hakase," Atom smiled, "I think Uran will be good therapy for me!", he replied giving his sister a hug back.

Cobalt was also glad to see his brother but he was a bit less outgoing than his younger sister. He strode quickly from his room as soon as he'd heard Uran's outburst and meekly forced his way inbetween the two of them to give Atom a hug.

"It's good to see you too, Kobaruto!", Atom laughed.

The three of them sat on the large couch in front of the television set and Chi-tan crawled over to Atom and waved his arms to be picked up. Atom set his youngest brother onto his lab and affectionately scratched his head near his cowlick, while Chi-tan grabbed his brother's green belt and tugged on it.

Cobalt turned on the large screen TV and tuned into a newscast.

" _The Emperor announced today that he would personally direct the lead into the investigation of the three corporations whose assets were just taken over by the government. Tennō Akihito disclosed that he has received a large package of documents that reveal how the Tokugawa and Moonsunfu corporations, along with the companies owned by the Kioke conglomerate have been pursuing activities that have resulted in the spread of toxic wastes, compromising the nations food supply, as well as contributing to global climate change. It was only a few days ago that the Prime Minister signed a decree, that had been approved by the Diet in a single day, ordering the three aforementioned companies to surrender all assets to the government until an investigation could be completed. This only a day after Chiko and Danno Kioke were found gunned down in the board room of the Moonsunfu corporation, along with the charred remains of the body of Hisa Goto, CEO of that company. The investigation into their murders has been taken over by the NPA, under the direction and supervision of the Emperor._

 _In related news, Rock Holmes, the self appointed leader of the environment protest group 'The Fiery Gospel' was released from police custody and was cleared of charges that he had ordered the assassination of the leaders of the three aforementioned companies. The police had originally suspected the robot Atlas had been programmed by Rock to commit the crimes, however their attention is now on a new suspect whose name they are not ready to reveal._

 _Holmes-San replied that he holds no grudge against the police, and is pleased as to how the government is responding to the new information. When asked if he or his organization were responsible for leaking the documents that the Emperor mentioned, Rock would only reply, 'no comment'."_

"Well now, that is an interesting turn of events," the professor exclaimed.

At that, there was a knock on the front door. Ochanomizu walked over to the genkan area and opened the front door to find Reno and Atlas standing there. Atlas politely bowed and asked "Is it OK if I come in?"

"Why certainly!" Ochanomizu replied.

Uran turned around to see who was at the door and cried out, "You have a lot of nerve coming here after what you did to Ani!"

"Now, Now, Uran!" the professor replied, "I think some explanations are in order."

"Indeed," Reno replied. "I've just finished repairing Atlas's A.I., I've removed the same infection from him that Dr. Tenma has put into Atom. I did not remove Atlas's Omega factor, so his usual obnoxious attitudes will probably resurface eventually."

"I somehow think that I should take offense to that," Atlas replied.

"What do you remember from the past few days?," Ochanomizu asked Atlas.

"Bits and pieces," Atlas replied. "Reno has told me what has transpired, some of which I do recall, some which I have no memory of. I feel a bit ashamed of myself for my actions, and I have to thank you Ochanomizu-San for convincing the police not to charge me."

"We both know who the responsibility lies with, Atlas," the professor replied.

"You're talking about Dr. Tenma, aren't you?" Atom said.

"Yes, but how do you know?", the professor replied, "Your memory was wiped."

"After seeing that newscast, I think I can guess what has happened." Atom replied, "and I think I know what I need to do."

"No!" Reno said. "That's not a good idea!"

"Actually, I don't think it would hurt." the professor replied. "He's still at the same prison mental hospital, but they've moved him into the high security wing under constant guard. Your name is still on the visitor list, if you'd really like to see him."

* * *

 **Atom** and Dr. Tenma looked at each other from opposite sides of a three centimeter thick piece of bullet proof glass. They communicated via a pair of handsets, though Atom was able to simply lip read the man's speech.

"Sensei, Nande ka?" Atom asked

"What do you remember, Tobio?" Umataro asked.

"Nothing." Atom replied, "But I have my suspicions."

"In that case I won't trouble you with the details, It's best that you don't remember." Tenma answered.

"I am pleased with the outcome, however," he added. "It seems that Rock and Reno have managed to take advantage of the situation I set in motion, and the results that I was hoping for may yet be achieved."

"Four men are dead." Atom replied.

"Five actually," Tenma answered. "Perhaps that last one will be explained to you someday. His name was left out of the newscasts because he wasn't important, and that pleases me greatly."

"How can you value a human life so little?" Atom asked.

"The value of a man's life is what he does with it," Tenma replied. "A man who values his own life over all of humanity isn't worth much at all. A man who places little value on his own existence, and a greater value on that of his fellow men is worth quite a lot. That's why I don't mind being locked up in here, it gives my own existence great meaning."

"I think I understand." Atom nodded.

"Good," Tenma smiled. "Perhaps you should go now, I think your real family needs you. But do come back and visit me from time to time."

"I will," Atom promised as he got up and waved to the guard to let him out. As he exited the facility and took to the air to fly back home he realized that perhaps Umataro Tenma wasn't quite the mad man that everyone thought he was, but a rather complex individual with a serious martyr complex, and he felt sorry for him.

 _ **The End**_

 _This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of any characters in this story to any real persons, living or dead, is the product of an over active imagination (possibility the author's). Any similarity of events or facts in this story to recent events in the news should be considered as the author's inspiration for writing this fiction. The author would also like to apologize for any bits of "TMI" in certain parts of this story. That's why it has a "T" rating._


End file.
